Godzilla: Titan Sun
by AxeO'War
Summary: When Monarch discovers a mysterious archaeological site tucked deep in the Peruvian Andes, Girain "Athena" is dispatched to conduct an expedition to document the discovery. The emerging paramilitary order of Orion Sword isn't far behind as they send their best Rex Unit towards the same location as her. But little do they know how fate has set them up for a journey of self discovery
1. Chapter 1: History's mystery

**Hello there you happy people. It's been a long time since I wrote a proper Godzilla fic and here it is. A new Godzilla fic for you all that's also a love letter to the original Tomb Raider 1996 on the PSX. There are some characters and plotlines you might recognize from my other fic written for the GRC, that is because this story is an adaptation of an RP plot I made while i was a member of the GRC. Due to my recent expulsion from the GRC by its group owner, I decided to rewrite many of the plot elements I have made into a trilogy of reboot stories that focuses only on the Kaiju aspects with inclusion of the recent Godzilla King of the Monsters movie.**

**Before you read this, I feel that I should get this off my belly since it is something that has been bothering me and affected the writing process of this story. Back in around early April this year I was kicked out of the Godzilla Roleplay Circle or GRC for short, by its group leader on charges "Sabotaging" his RP segment. However this doesn't hold much water because his RP segment went pretty much as he planned and ended without any impediments. I tried to move on from that group like any mature person would, but very recently, about 3 weeks ago, my friend Squdge/Shiryu who co authored some of the Godzilla and SMITE stories with me, suddenly blocked me on Steam without any reasons and left me without telling why. I have been trying to get into contact with him but no lucks, he shrugs off any friends I asked to help establish he he left me.**

**To clarify to you all about how messed up this situation for me is, let me explain to you my experience in the GRC. At first when I was invited, the group owner Xen appears to be friendly and supportive, but later on he started to become hostile towards me over time when I wasn't supporting his Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover. His group might be a Godzilla RP circle but he also crammed in the entire cast, plotpoints and everything Evangelion into the RP world along with the literal Infinity Stones of MCU and the Infinity War and Endgame plot. All this without bothering to answer the question of "Why are they there?" to begin with, naturally the RP becomes a convoluted mess, his segments becomes filled with contrived plotpoints, characters who can do anything contradicting themselves without facing repercussions, and especially his Evangelion characters like SEELE and NERV who can apparently help the villains for no clear reasons other than for the sake of "Complexity". This makes the segments become stretched and bloated and he doesn't even want to admit that it was his fault that make a conceptually incomprehensible RP plot. **

**Eventually his last segment replaces all semblance of a Godzilla plot with Evangelion, and JoJo Bizarre Adventure without thinking about why does it have to be like that. I honestly could not keep up because I don't know about any of these but they all seem to break the RP immersions, so I asked politely to sit out the seg and let him RP it till it's done. Xen then exploded into a mouth foaming tirade blaming me for ruining his segment and kicked me out of the group before he then proceeded to keep my best friend Squdge away from me, locking him into Xen's own private chatroom to RP with him and play games with him and exclude me from Squdge's life.**

**If you like Godzilla RPs then I suggest you keep it private between your friends and not join this group, Xen is just straight up toxic and obnoxiously pretentious. He won't admit his fault and certainly won't admit that he is a bad fanfic writer, his preference to blame me is evidence of that. So far his group has been reformed (more like REWIND since the previous times suffered the same infightings) three times already but he has not changed the way he RPs or how his RPs are structured, so it's safe to say that despite personnel change, the group will just degenerate into infighting again. All I want is my friend Squdge/Shiryu to be my friend and just talk to him and RP with him in privates without the group bothering us, but people just keep telling me to move on from him. All the while Xen himself asked for nude pics from a girlfriend he broke up with for two long years after a scant few months of dating. I don't know what thought process considers that's normal but I'm pretty sure that only a sick deranged lunatic would use nude pics for extortions.**

**With that done, please enjoy the story.**

* * *

Chapter 1: History's mystery

Jornada del Muerto, 56km Southeast of Soccoro, New Mexico, USA

July 16th, 1945

It was the day they've been waiting for, the day when the hard work of engineering and theories of nuclear physics see the fruits of their labors. From safety bunkers and observatory far from the blast site, workers, technicians, scientists, engineers and other related personnel put on their safety goggles, shielding their eyes from the inevitable blinding light of atomic blast.

They counted down for the moment of truth, waiting with suspense in their mind as they observed the nuclear test site from afar. The count down soon came to an end and the moment of suspense evolved into a furious blast of nuclear fireball. For a moment of intense glow, the world was basking in a massive mushroom cloud with orange flaming ball of heat as the shock of the blast ripped through the land, tearing apart wooden houses and mock up town, throwing cars like ragdolls and toys.

But while the members of Project Manhattan watched the fruit of their labor with a mix of awe inspiring and fear at what would become of the world, beneath the crater of the nuclear blast, a cylindrical device was unearthed by The Gadget, it appeared to be a cylindrical tube with the glass being heavily damaged by the blast, the vapor and frozen water were seen on the shards of the glass, followed by a winged bat-like humanoid flying out of the crater.

* * *

October 25th, 2026

02:05 Hours

LANDSAT 9, Earth's orbit

Round and round it goes, when it stops few who knows. The tunes of LANDSAT 9 played on as the satellite orbit out in space. Circling around the Earth against a background of celestial beauty of countless stars, LANDSAT 9 surveyed the land below with the intention of completing its mission of surveying the Earth before it is decommissioned.

As the satellite came over the South America region of the globe, the high power telescope of the satellite zoomed down to the Andes of Peru taking various photos of the landscape, it then switched over to deep ground penetrating thermal visions to map out any anomalies it might have had picked up. In the process of it, images were forwarded to ground technicians with an image being processed digitally before being printed out.

* * *

Black Site Mike India-04

South Pacific Ocean, at that same time…

GDI PACOM

The personnel there were scrambling around the computer terminals and keyboards, passing files and notes to one another as they received the LANDSAT 09 images forwarded to them via MONARCH, the images were processed and gave the analysts a stunted face. They saw red outlines of a massive tunnel complex built into the mountains, clearly by human hands. But the size was… a different story.

They noticed how the tunnels were clearly too large for humans alone, and yet the structure was able to stay elusive and hidden from prying eyes for so long made them question what had slipped by the technologically advanced eyes. What was more intriguing to them was the scale and size of the tunnels being more like a massive city tugged into the mountains to remain hidden from prying eyes.

More questions were raised when photos of what appeared to a valley in the same area emerged, high up on the Andes and there were tropical climate jungle with a separate ecosystem. "My God, looks like we'll be hosting The Lost World documentary show." One of the analysts muttered in astonishment.

They quickly grabbed the files of the LANDSAT photos and pasted them into a digital folder and forwarded it to an email address of "ghostintheshell08 ". More copies of the photos were forwarded to members of MONARCH in an underwater observatory of an offshore oil rig. The members of MONARCH present there were observing a sight beyond their wildest imaginations, a chance to see an organic Godzilla hunting in the Ocean, accompanied by a human MechaGodzilla unit to document the process.

They stood by the glass bubble watching the sight of a grown male Godzilla hunting around the ocean at a depth of 4500 feet below sea level. The male in question had almost bird-like yellow eyes and jagged dorsal plates and black charcoal skin. The dorsal plates appeared to have a sword like pattern to them.

Accompanying him was a mecha unit almost equal to him in height, this one was noticeably much more slender while maintaining the same body proportion of a Godzillasaur. It was an MFS model, but one with albino armor with blue sapphire optical lens. Camera feed from the mecha unit's eyes denoted that it was MFS-4 Type 4 "ATHENA" Girain, so far she had been a faithful and loyal mecha unit of the GDI, acting as their best bridge between humans and Kaiju.

"My God, look at them go." Said the elder MONARCH scientist, a Caucasian male with white hair denoting his age who wore a pair of glasses with a brown jacket over his grey shirt and grey pair of khakis, his name tag identified him as Rick Stanton. "I don't suppose he's into her?" He asked half jokingly watching Godzilla Jr and Girain swimming together on a hunting trip around the area for giant sea serpent.

"That's mess up." One of the GDI troopers there quip with his index finger circling around the side of his head. "If he's robosexual she'd be filing rape charges on the guy, along with child care support." Said a younger and nerdier member of MONARCH accompanying Rick Stanton, a bearded caucasian male with ginger brown hair and blue eyes with an ID tag displaying his name as "Sam Coleman".

"Just wait till you guys see the mess hall." Said another GDI troopers there watching Girain and Jr communicating with one another using gestures, body languages as they swam in on a giant sea serpent. The two first split off to corner the serpent's head and tail end, they then close in like pack hunting before the serpent spotted them. It darted its head around the ocean, trying to evade the predators only to have Jr coming in and bit it on its neck.

With a ferocity only seen in alpha males of a pack, he tugged and turned around, yanking the serpent's head in the opposite direction with his teeth dug into its flesh and piercing the scales. Girain accompanying Jr hung back to make a recording of his hunt showing them the grisly detail and carnal instinct.

The serpent's blood spilt and red the water while its body coiled around Jr trying to choke him and break free. Only to be wrestled to the seabed by Jr as he ripped off its head letting that piece float to the surface with blood pouring out. "Consider us very intimidated." Said Coleman with a shudder. When they saw Jr handing Girain the serpent, as if to offer her a share of the hunt, she appeared to shake her head and held up her hand in a polite and gentle refusal. "Well, at least he tried to be a gentleman. Sort of." Said Rick with a slight chuckle as they saw the two surfacing.

Sam could only stand there and watch as Jr fade away into the murky water of the Pacific Ocean swimming off towards the den that was his home on the island. Though they were stationed in an archipelago, the population of Titans seen so far had been fairly low.

Coleman however saw that his phone was rumbling and whipped it out to see what was on the agenda. "Holy shit…" He uttered quietly looking at the screen of the phone before tapping on the microphone of the observatory to dial Girain's comms. In doing so it made a high pitched and loud blaring sound that was essentially nails on chalkboard for everyone's ears.

"Uh Athena, can you hear me? We got words to return to base for briefing. Something's up." He then awkwardly glanced over his shoulder at the GDI surveillance technician on a nearby desk and ask him. "She can hear me right?" He asked, to which a female voice came through the P.A system of the observatory.

"Affirmative I hear you. I'll be there in 10, just get the hangar ready for me when I get there. Any ideas about what's going on this time?" She asked gently to him, her voice was noticeably synthesize and probably simulated. But the inflection and tone she used that had something almost human like to it. "Best that you see it yourself, this is something… incredible." Said Sam with a pause and hesitation. "Alright… if you guys say so." Said Girain with a nervous sigh.

[hr]

Taklamakan Desert, Central Asia

14:00 hours local time

Long ago this was the Silk Road, a link of East and West by trade. The desert no matter how treacherous could never stave off life or activities of humans. A barren wasteland of sand it maybe but it did not drive away humans from living in it, or in this case, underneath it.

Deep below the sandy dunes, some 6000 feet below sea level, exists a massive sprawling military base. Each section was a hub area connected together by sprawling grey tunnels and concrete, metal. If New York were to be built underground with the express purpose of a military base, this facility would be the result. Orion Sword was the name of the organization who owned the base.

The tunnels were more than 100 meters high with a width of more than 150 meters, the areas were big enough for divisions or regiments to quickly move around in with their tanks, armored vehicles, and even aircraft. In one of these areas, there exists a circular arena with 10 sleek, angular towering mecha units. They all seem reptilian by design with long tails, sharp, spiky dorsal plates that can flip up and down depending on their needs.

All of them were identical looking Rex Units (Author's note: Riobot NERV Shiryu as point of reference) with navy blue armor and sleek angular helmets with a razor ridge like design that had cyan highlights on their eyes. On their chests, each one of these had a serial code number from "R-1001" to "R-1010".

Rex Units they were called, living weapons created from DNA templates of Godzillasaur, modified in massive artificial wombs to become a sleeker specimen. Their legs were amputated, replaced by enhanced prosthetic legs that double as their weapon holsters for their sidearms and gear. Their bodies were covered with enhanced robot armor suit carrying powerful chest mounted Hyper Laser ray, shoulder mounted autocannon. On their chest and thighs were symbols of Orion Sword, a hexagon with a blue outline circle and a red S letter in the middle.

Overlooking the arena was an observatory, occupied by two men, one was tall and imposing with a jet black armored suit. Standing at approximately 8 feet tall with muscle masses beyond that of an ordinary man, his face was obscured behind an advanced helmet and ballistic mask that act as a breathing apparatus with various optical systems mounted on the helmet.

The man next to him wear a similar piece of high tech armor and uniform with a tactical vest bearing pouches on the torso section. His optics though were not as complex or as dense, but still an impressive holographic tactical display for the human eyes instead of being a screen that obscure line of sights of field of views.

"Begin." He uttered tersely with the arena then shifted the floor plans raising columns, pillars and walls to form line obstacles and cover. The Rex Units present there began to dash towards cover with each one carrying with them a Titan sized automatic assault rifle.

A heavily modified version of the familiar H&K G36K rifle only now with Beta-C drum magazines, an angled ergonomic grip integrated with the buttstock looking like the civilian SL-8 version of the military grade rifle. Their HUDs displayed Augmented Reality information with various details such as cover densities, rough estimate of penetrations of bullets, ammo count and magazines.

Their weapons were firing blanks and simulated using MILES, but their suits were rigged to simulate pains and bullet impacts to make their otherwise non-lethal training as close to real life as possible.

R-1001 duck behind the simulated wall and peaked out on the edge of his cover to pop off a few shots at one of the identical Rex Units that he saw. The bullets hit home and that Rex Unit, R-1003, felt aching sensation coursing through his body simulating pain as he was unable to aim straight.

The deathmatch would soon see that R-1002 pummeled through one of the walls and tackled R-1005 into the wall and bash him with the rifle buttstocks, despite being bashed and stunted, the other identical Rex Unit engaged its melee weapon built into the arm pieces of his Rex Unit armor, a pair of tonfas blades, coated in synthetic diamond materials that can pierce the hides of a Godzillasaur and swipe at R-1002's neck and shoulder. He then continued with a roundhouse kick at R-1002, not holding back at all with the enhanced agility and mobility that was given to them.

"R-1002 taking the lead over R-1005." The P.A announces as R-1002 then quickly dash away from R-1005, keeping in mind playing the objective was the most important thing. R-1001 in turn was surveying the center of the arena where the holographic VR flag was, waiting for him to obtain.

But around him were the constant bashing, melee fighting and shooting between the other 9 Rex Units identical to himself. "R-1006 has taken out R-1008." The P.A announces and he saw that indeed R-1008 was riddled with "Bullets" holes projected on his body with red highlights to denote the damaged portions. "R-1007 has taken out R-1009." The P.A announced again, ramping up the tension as more Rex Units were "eliminated" from the exercise leaving only two standing.

Still, he had to accomplish his objective no matter what, so he vaulted over the piece of cover he had and sprinted for the flag, taking advantage of the chaos. But as he was coming up close to it, R-1002 fired off a burst at his leg, causing him to fall over with the simulated injuries and damages to his legs making him feel the pain of combat.

He rolled around on the floor with R-1002 beginning to push forward to capture the flag, not intending to let victory slip away, R-1001 returned the favor by firing his Titan G36K at R-1002. The burst of automatic fire tripped R-1002 off his feet with the simulated pains giving R-1001 precious time to get back on his feet and pushed forward and hobbled towards the flag and snatched it. "R-1001 has captured the flag, exercise complete." The P.A system announces.

"2 minutes and 15 seconds. Impressive record there, he took advantage of the infighting to seize the objective." Said the towering figure, though his voice was filtered through a voice modulator making him sound rather gruff and intimidating with the grainy effect of radio. Even then he was rather soft spoken. "Indeed, we programmed and educated them well. But only through training that the real gem emerges." Said the shorter and less physically imposing man.

"Joe," said the 7 feet tall man, "Have R-1001 briefed and assigned a designation to him. We might need him for something that's coming down the pipe." Joe nodded to the apparent commander of the sprawling underground base. "Give us 10 minutes and we'll be done, Walter. What do they have that requires deployment of a fresh graduate?" Joe asked casually looking at the recovering 10 Rex Units who were checking their scores and combat performance displayed on their HUDs. "I wish I knew how to explain it Joe, best we see it ourselves."

[hr]

The hangar area of the GDI PACOM base on the archipelago was a rather spacious area easily stretching to 60 to 70 meters in length with 250 meters in height and 150 meters in width. There was just about enough room for several mecha units to walk around and work in, Girain took the elevator platform down from the surface to the underground hangar where she saw a pair of Rex Units one male and one female sitting and talking to each other.

The male one was a chrome grey and silver armor Rex Unit with green cyan highlights on his panels, plates and eyes on his helmet. Unlike the Orion Sword Rex Units who only had serial codes, this one at least had a name to himself, Shiryu. The other Rex Unit talking to him, the first ever female of the Rex Unit line, she had an all black body with glossy shiny finish and bright red highlights on her body to where Shiryu's green highlights would be.

They were apparently watching the news with some humans on a nearby observatory with the TV broadcasting an event in New York City's Manhattan Borough. What appeared to be a wedding ceremony between a middle aged man with snowy white hair, chin goatee with a pair of glasses in matching white Tuxedo. The woman next to him was in white wedding gown was a blonde haired woman with a narrow chin and oval face with black eyes.

"Before you all stands the Billionaire tech genius Cameron Winter, and his newly wedded wife Jacqueline Natla of Natla Technologies. The sensational relationship between the two had been something of a media firestorm recently. With rumors regarding the exact motivation of Mrs. Natla's merger of Mr. Winter's Company and assets." Said the female news reporter who had blond curly hair as she stood before the wedding ceremony taking place at a local church with the newly wedded couple exiting holding hands to the cheers and applause of friends and business partners.

"Hey you two, how's the relationship going there?" Girain asked the two as she stood over the two slightly shorter Rex Units compared to her. "Hola chica," said the female Rex Unit in a thick Spanish accent sounding with a Latin American quality to it. "My mang Rexie here is dense as a brick. Así que no hay relación aquí." She said before nudging at Shiryu slightly who then shyly looked away from her and focus on Girain. "I don't know about relationship Girain. This is so awfully foreign to me." Said Shiryu with a nervous shrug at his female partner, Chikiryu "Santa Muerte" La Roja as they call her.

"Go easy on him Chiki, you know it's not his fault he's dense." Girain stated calmly to Chikiryu while giving Shiryu some loving pats on his shoulder, cautious not to hit his shoulder mounted cannon. "Bueno senorita Athena, look my mang and I are going out for a walk while you have your briefing. Adios muchacha." She said playfully to Girain and began to hold Shiryu's hand to lead him towards the elevator out of the hangar while Shiryu was much more nervous with how she tugged and pulled him to unfamiliar territories. "Please help me when you can." He pleaded to Girain who could only sigh and nervously shrug at him.

Once they were out of sight and the humans superior arrive in the observatory to brief her, Girain prepared herself and moved her head closer to the observatory to observe who was handing out her assignment. Beside the familiar face of Lt. General Scott Grady, there were Monarch's Sam Coleman chief of technology, Rick Stanton Crypto-sonographer and Eli Baline a nerdy looking Geneticist. Eli and Sam at first glance were almost identical if it weren't for Eli's glasses, thicker beard and mustache and darker hair color.

"Nice to see you still up and around." Grady spoke to Girain with a bit of sarcasm in his voice but the lax attitude he display seems to suggest that the two have known each other well enough. "Likewise sir, how's the coffee?" She asked him tersely with a bit of a chuckle in her mouth, he let out a yawn and covered his mouth with his left hand. "Could use more cream. But it'll have to do. Anyway let's get to work. About 10 minutes ago one of Monarch's LANDSAT picked up an unidentified subterranean complex." Grady began with showing her slides of the LANDSAT photos.

To her eyes, Girain saw what appeared to be a sprawling city deep underground with an entrance being a large stone gate on a lonely mountain top with broken wooden suspension bridge. There was another way, one that zigzagged along the mountain side and ridges. An ancient footpath leading from the base up towards the entrance. The strangest part was how big the footpath was, easily enough for a Godzilla like herself to walk on.

"Where did you guys find this?" Girain asked seemingly surprised. "Peru, we think it could be the site of the lost city of Vilcabamba." Sam added, rubbing his chin as he was equally curious. "Sonographic testing show that the maximum depth ran to around… 68km below sea level with the inner sanctum. Sonar mapping shows various air pockets and tunnels that the Andes winds can blow into." Rick rubbed his head, "Either I'm drunk or the computer has learned to troll me." He added sarcastically.

"Vilcabamba? The last Incan capital post Francisco Pizarro?" Girain asked bewildered. "Allegedly." Grady corrected. "Normal convention goes is that we send in an expedition team to check it out. But learning from the Skull Island team in 1973, we decided it's best to send you first." The general concluded with Girain feeling a mixture of unease by the unknown and the nausea inducing possibilities of having casualties on her watch.

"No complaints here. Still… I would like to know how did this evade satellites for so long." Said Girain with her arms crossed before her chest panels. "You me both girl." Rick remarked. "Mission time will be 05:00 hours tomorrow, you'll be flying to Peru with an expeditionary task force of the GDI SOUTHCOM on standby with embedded Monarch scientists. Good luck." General Grady concluded the briefing.

[hr]

Back in the Orion Sword base, a similar briefing was handed out to the chosen Rex Unit R-1001. However he now stood out from the pack due to his performance and was christened as R-1001 Stuka or just Stuka for short. He now stood in his hangar with his fellow Rex Unit, each one having a leg lock frame keeping them stand still. On the back of their heads, each one has a neural outlet port with a cable jacked into allowing them to have their consciousness uploaded into a common room in a VR world where they can run drills and VR training.

Stuka however was being presented with satellite coverages over the Peruvian Andes mountain ranges with the location of Vilcabamba marked in red and the voice of his human superior, Walter Lenox or simply known as Mr. Grey stating his mission objectives.

"LANDSAT 09 of Monarch has discovered this site on the Andes Mountain range, processed photos and surveys reveal that there's a sprawling underground complex built into the mountains. We don't know what it is. But we do know our less-than-friendly neighbors the GDI is sending an expedition there to find out about it. Your mission is to conduct a reconnaissance of the site and report any findings. Stay on your toes out there, our listening posts corroborated intel that their finest, Unit Athena will be deployed to site, so expect some company." Hearing these words, the kneeling Stuka nodded obediently to the information provided to him.

"Affirmative, conduct recon on unknown archaeological findings. Interrogative, what is my ROE?" He asked his commander, on his neck was a collar like device that translate his Godzillian sounds to audible word with a rough translation applied for good measure. "Only fire unless fired upon. Do not engage unless you are actively threatened by the GDI. You'll be transported via one of our VX-49 flying wings transport, we'll deploy you off the coast and let you make your way up to Vilcabamba by foot from there. Good luck." Grey concluded the briefing for Stuka as he continued his kneeling in the VR world studying maps of the region with the photos Orion Sword had of Girain or as they prefer to call her, Athena, the official registered name of the first MFS-4 Type 4. Stuka knew from a brief glance, he was about to meet what was best described as a legend amongst Orion Sword's Computer and A.I research division.


	2. Chapter 2: Tawantinsuyu

Chapter 2: Tawantinsuyu

Girain had prepared for her mission well, it wasn't her first time out on the field alone and she had back up in the forms of humans she works with. She had to ditch the MFS missile packs due to them not fitting the cramped and claustrophobic spaces of where she was going. As far as weapon concerns, she had only her dual wrist mounted railguns to rely on, the other being her oral AZC and chest mounted Plasma Grenade Launcher. Even then she was still a walking arsenal.

She was being airlifted across the Pacific Ocean from Blacksite Mike India-04 using White Heron transports that were signature transports for MFS units. As she took off from the runway of the GDI's PACOM base she could see the archipelago from a high up position but she can't turn her head around to observe more of it from the air.

The island chains consist of a handful of large islands near one another with dense, teeming tropical rainforests and lush jungle, the one she lived and worked on was populated by humans of Monarch and GDI with a Godzilla family that she interacts with on a regular basis. Other islands however were still unpopulated at this point.

The flight to Peru for her would take up around six and a half hours to travel there partly due to the need to refuel mid flight for the Herons as they carry her over to Peru. The competition was not far behind with Orion Sword now scrambling to dispatch their chosen Rex Unit. Out in an open stretch of land, sitting on a highway out in the Taklamakan desert, a massive flying wing shaped aircraft or rather, aerial transport ship, was warming up its engine after being taxied into position for take off, tucked in the bombay under the plane's hull and fuselage was Stuka.

The Rex unit was magnetically hooked to the ceiling of the bombay area with his head looking downward as the engines hummed and purred. "Come in Nest this is Ark flight lead, we got assets in place and ready to go. Over." the pilot spoke on the radio to his flight boss on the tarmac overlooking the makeshift runway. "Ark Lead this is Nest, you're clear for take off, expecting heavy wind and sandstorm in around 10 minutes, better make it fast. Out."

With that in mind, the pilot of the flying wing, who sat behind a remote control screen safe in the comfort of his underground base began to program take off protocols and let the Ark take off on its own. The jet engines roar out and thrusters kicked into overdrive with the VX craft picking up momentum along the highway before taking off into the sky.

"Nest this is Ark Lead, we're in the air, heading to objective now." The pilot reported over the comms as he watched the unmanned flying wing flew across Central Asia heading West, across the Middle East and North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.

[hr]

October 25th, 2026

6 hours later, 08:05 Hours

Vilcabamba, Peru

She finally arrived at Peru, land of the Incas and one of the cradles of civilization. The Heron dropped her off once her feet and tail had touched the ground, once she was on her own, Girain glanced around taking in her surroundings. She consulted her map and GPS system and compass displayed on her HUD allowing her to see that she was on the foothill of the Andes, right in front of the footpath.

She shivered however when she felt the cold breezes from the Andes blew down at her, it didn't help with the fact that her metal armor made her synthetic flesh and muscles underneath the protective plates shiver. The sensational feedback made her wish for shelter from the wind and cold air as reptiles hated the cold climate. "Let's get this over with…" She shivered in thought as she began to make her way up the mountains following the footpath.

She took notice from a ground level, it looked like a large paved highway snaking along the mountains, but the width alone is just too big for even modern Peru's road system and standards. In fact, even without the paved highway, the footpath itself was made for her to climb the mountain all the way.

The wind blew cold icy air down from the Andes at her, making her shiver and held her arms together to keep warm as she climbed the mountains, passing by ruins of Incan outposts, watchtowers, warehouses and even some statues and totems of Tawantinsuyu. But while she was climbing the Andes, she felt a tremor quaking through the area, causing her to lose balance and she quickly hugged the ground to find some grip. The tremor was brief however and it didn't seem to last long before dissipated, but this made her grew more concerning.

"Overlord, Athena here, I just got an earthquake in the sector, slight tremor more like. Can you identify the source over?" She asked cautiously while looking around for signs of unknown causes or anything out of the ordinary. On the radio, General Grady halfway across the globe was looking at the War Room inside the GDI's PACOM base, one of the monitors there was a Geologist who was observing seismic activities along the Andes. "We hear you, stand by. It looks like there's no signs suggesting a natural Earthquake in your area. Our radar did pick up a blip over the epicenter of the quake though, could be hostile." Grady cautioned her, prompting Girain to nod and looked over to the East where the quake was reported.

There were mountains obscuring her view but she could made a guess that somewhere in that area could be a hostile entity. "Orion Sword?" She asked. "You bet your nickel and dime they might be nearby. Watch your back out there. High clouds are preventing our Sats from getting visual confirmation, we're also getting blizzard reports coming on the mountain you're on so stay sharp."

With that in mind she resumed her journey up the Andes, eventually arriving at a snowy summit where before her eyes stood an enormous stone gate. The structure seem to have carvings and imagery of a Titan, a Godzilla in fact. On each of the gate, there was a Godzilla both looking towards something in the middle, a circular shape that stood high above them with humans below their feet. The coloration had faded however by the wind and climate leaving rooms for Girain to interpret it.

"You guys seeing this?" Girain asked over the comms while her eyes stream video feeds back to GDI TOC in Cusco, Peru and Monarch personnel Sam Coleman and Rick Stanton there. "Coming in five by five, pretty impressive stuff there big girl. Any ideas how to open it?" Rick asked her while stroking his chin, looking over the depictions and art style on the stone gate he could infer that Incans may had at one point lived with a Godzilla, revered it as their god and patron.

"Not even a pin could open it. This is Incan stone work for you. They're giant jigsaw puzzles made of rocks." She replied with a sigh before she started to look around at the entrance for something that can open the doors. With her height she noticed that at the top of the gate there were various glyphs and pictographs of birds. She climbed up on the mountain side to gain a better vantage point of the glyphs and saw that this wasn't Incan glyph, but rather a stylized bird of the Chimu culture.

There were three blocks of stone with the image of the motifs, the one in the center appeared to have a cylindrical button that she pressed on instinct, once she climbed down however she soon felt an uneasy feeling crawling up her spine. "Guys, I don't think I'm alone here." Said Girain as she armed her railguns and scan the area for possible threats. "Hold on, I got something here… wait a second… it's right behind you!" Sam called out urgently as Girain turned around looking at the footpath only to find a Rex Unit, R-1001 Stuka emerging up at her. He had his G36K rifle aiming at her face as they stare at one another.

"Oh great, who invited these guys?" Girain sarcastically huffed out seeing Stuka as he remained silent while maintaining his attention on her. "Target sighted Unit Athena." Stuka uttered robotically. "Sorry but this place is taken, find your own archaeological site." She sarcastically retorted at him presumably at his human commander as well by extension. "Mission objective stands, investigate unknown site in the Andes. Engaged only when under direct hostile contact." Stuka remarked in a deadpan manner, completely dull and lifeless despite his voice to her sounding very much organic.

"Somebody's gonna make a meme out of this soon." Sam awkwardly commented at the intense stand-off the two were having as they kept their weapons pointed at each other's faces ready to pull the trigger at a moment's notice. But while the two were having their stand-offs, the stone gate opened up releasing the cold breeze inside out at them.

The two were quickly greeted by the sound of loud and vicious snarls of feral beasts within, they both glanced over their shoulders towards the entrance of the tomb, from inside the cavern out came a pack of ferocious serpent like Titans, each one having a pair of pale eyes that slipped inside protected by the carapaces of their long straight jagged skulls. Their body scale was grey and leathery, some patches of flesh were torn off revealing bones within their bodies. They didn't have any legs, other than a long tail with their arms being the only means to traverse around or manipulate objects. "Oh shit… Skullcrawlers." Rick gasped in shock, though he was sitting in Lima, it felt all too real for him.

The two Godzillas were jumped upon by the monsters as they hastily turned their weapons and aimed at the charging beasts. Girain herself fired off two railgun slugs consecutively at one pouncing Titan, slaying it almost immediately just before it could land on her. She then tossed the corpse aside just as it was falling on her.

While then Stuka quickly aimed at one Skullcrawler that was zigzagging at him, using his Augmented Reality HUD, the green cyan ballistic trajectory calculation led him to aim just in front of the beast and pulled the trigger. Slaying one with precision while then his shoulder mounted autocannon flipped up and open fire on another to his side, throwing it off the mountains with a hail of lead.

Girain who was holding back at her enemies saw that one was charging at her so she quickly gave it a tail swipe across the face, throwing it at Stuka's back. His reflex was lighting fast for a Godzilla, his onboard sensors picked up the incoming monster allowing him to dash aside letting it fall in front of him, slamming into another Skullcrawler, this was the moment that he opened the mouthpiece of his helmet. His dorsal plates pulsiated, flashing blue before a blue atomic breath escaped his mouth blasting at the Skullcrawlers and pushed, completely incinerate them.

"Targets neutralized, area secured." Stuka reported blankly but as Girain looked around again, she realized that there was something not right, the commotion they just pulled would no doubt caused something to follow. And soon enough, an avalanche from the mountain top was coming down on them. "Oh shit! Avalanche!" She shouted out loud before hastily make a run into the entrance, along the way, she quickly wrapped her arm around Stuka's side and made a dolphin dive into the interior of the tunnel while the snow pile up behind them, blocking the entrance completely. "Well… guess there's no going back out that way." She sighed at the sight.

Stuka grunted as he got up to his feet, with the low light level his cyan optics and Girain's sapphire eyes were their only sources of light in the dark other than their night vision modes. "No damage sustained to platform, all suit control system nominal. Prosthetic limbs operational. Thank you for saving my life." He bowed his head briefly to Girain and in an oddly grateful manner causing her to raise her hands up defensively. "It's… it's nothing really. You did even up the odds out there with those Skullcrawlers." She replied to him in a more casual manner.

"Stone layers are too thick, our radio signal to the outside world is blocked. Recommended course of action: survival and complete mission objective." Stuka replied blankly as his radio static could not penetrate the thick layer of Incan stone architect leaving them stranded inside the tunnel and a presumed path downward. "Great… just so we're clear, the moment we're out of this place it's back to business." Girain sternly reminded him to which Stuka nodded understandingly. "Affirmative, the feeling's mutual to you Unit Athena." Said Stuka.

[hr]

"Sam you got her signal? I can't get a drone over the area due to the blizzard." Rick asked Sam who was typing away various command prompts on his field laptop bearing a Monarch logo. "I'm working on it, can't get a signal from here either. Artificial heartbeats are okay, still reading lifesigns and heat signatures from the satellite." Said Coleman as he pushed up satellite feed of the area to Rick and other Monarch personnel in the TOC.

The personnel there saw on the satellite feed, two white heat signatures moving within the mountainous caverns and tunnels with the red outlines being too vague and faint to clearly define the structural complex they were in. "Jesus Christ let's hope they don't get personal in there." Rick cursed out as he quickly ran over to grab the nearest satellite phone and call back to General Grady.

[hr]

The satellite call by Rick was being monitored by Orion Sword with their SIGINT and ELINT specialists tracing the satellite cell signals from Cusco towards the Pacific Islands that was PACOM Base. Lenox the imposing leader of Orion Sword along with his trusted second in command, Joe Marshall listened in closely with interest as the other Orion Sword personnel were beginning to grow troubled by the transpired events.

"Yes I am telling you that she is stuck inside the mountain! We need to deploy our QRF now and search the area! If we move fast enough we might catch that sonuva bitch Grey's pet Rex Unit there!" Rick's voice spoke out to General Grady with a growl and snarl as he conveyed the situation with fiery passion. "Say no more." General Grady replied tersely with a dry tone before he picked up the headset to the GDI QRF expeditionary task force in Peru. "Task Force Panther, Sunrise. I repeat Sunrise. You are mission go, happy hunting and make it double time. We have a stranded MFS unit and I want the entrance to that complex dug out fast." Said Grady with gruff voice over the radio.

"That does not bode well for anyone. Deploy our QRF and Rex Recovery Unit on stand by right now. We need to make sure Stuka won't fall into their hands." Grey ordered calmly to his lieutenant who then relayed the order to Orion Sword forces in Peru, presented to them as holographic symbol on a scalable touch screen hologram diagram. "Knowing Athena's personality and Stuka's training, do you expect them to have trouble with each other?" Joe asked cautiously, to which Grey only gave a rather nonchalant remark. "Some, but ultimately inconsequential. Considering their situations, I would have no doubt that they would cooperate for personal survival." Said Grey.

[hr]

Back inside the tunnel, Girain and Stuka were exploring the areas deep inside, completely isolated from the development of the outside world. The two at first followed the straight forward path of the tunnel heading deeper inside the mountain cave. But all around them were constant reminders of human architect scaled up to their sizes.

The Incan stone blocks built and carved into a jigsaw puzzle stacked on one another in such perfectly fit manner that not even a pin can get between the crevices of the stones. Or in the case of Stuka, not even his sharp and narrow tonfa blades can slip between the stones.

The path they were following soon branched off into two lanes, one on their left headed up a slope into a parallel section for humans and the right side was for a Godzilla. Due to the small size of their lane, Stuka and Girain had to go in a single file with Stuka leading the way while Girain followed him. As the two walked along the right lane into the interior of Vilcabamba, Girain glanced over noticing that the human lane was noticeably built to the height of her and Stuka's head so that they could see the humans activities.

"How did they coexist so well?" Girain wondered out loud as she zoomed in to observe the stone Incan mountain cave highway system seeing the rectangular tunnel being carved out of rock and wide enough for two separate lanes of humans flowing in and out of the area. Not only that but there were enough stairways leading to other sections of the area. "Unknown, architectural evidence defies all known historical records." Said Stuka robotically as he observe the area they were in.

The two would soon find themselves by a wide corridor where the stone tile sunk down upon being stepped on. This caused them both to feel a bone chilling dread as Stuka made a dash across the corridor on instinct. Perhaps motivated by fear or survival instinct, he passed by various stakes shooting out of the wall, leaving Girain to stand by the tile alone.

He looked back at her and saw that the corridor was segmented into safe spaces sandwiched between the spikes shooting out of the wall. "My apologies unit Athena, I can't seem to stop the mechanism from here." He stated dully to her. Girain sighed out and rolled her eyes proverbially before looking around noticing a lever placed in an out of sight angle of the pillar.

She yanked the lever down and did the same to a twin lever next to it, in doing so, the spike traps cease fired and allow her to walk casually over to Stuka. "Thank you for the observation Stuka. At least you didn't just sit tight." She remarked with a bit of sarcastic snark at him before leading the way for him but not before tossing down a chemlight to mark their trails. "My turn now, let's go I think I can feel some air up ahead." True to her words, the two would come upon what appeared to be a multi story and layered residential area of Vilcabamba.

The place had a more natural, almost chaotic design to it with the Incan houses being built on the higher areas tucked to the rocky ridges or dug into the cave's stone wall itself there were also clusters of stone buildings on some spacious sections near the ceiling of the cave. In the center of Vilcabamba's residential area was waterhole, positioned directly below the sunlight where ice and snow can be melted down by the sun and drop into an all natural water supply and aqueduct system.

Stuka came over to it and knelt down by it before opening his mouthpiece, he clasped both hands into a cup and took some water from the waterhole, he drank a small sip of it and licked his lips briefly before the mouthpiece collapsed back to cover him up. "Water supply is pure enough. Safe for human consumption."

He stood up from the waterhole and took a look around his area and found that there were houses with mummies inside of them. Unlike burial mummies in Egypt, he saw that these mummies were clothed, they sat in the middle of the living room of the house with food presented to them. "Waste of resources, there is no efficiency in providing for mummies." He stated blankly, not quite understanding what he was seeing.

"This is Tawantinsuyu, they believed that the dead influence the living from beyond the grave. There are more important things to humans than just wealth to themselves." Girain remarked to Stuka as she took photos of the Incan mummies and their offerings. Hearing this Stuka quietly cocked his head aside being rather confused and curious. "Interrogative, what is important to humans outside of efficient nutrients and wealth or job training?" He asked her robotically.

Girain sighed out to Stuka having a hard time trying to explain to him the concepts, the problem for her was mainly Rex Units of Orion Sword were not given E-Learning Audio Books on matters outside of military concepts. "Like emotional, psychological needs. Those can influence their decision making and outlook more than just nickels and dimes." Girain scoffed at him before walking off to a nearby wall filled with decorative arts depicting a Godzilla sitting on what appeared to be a regal Solar Throne with the Incan people bowing before him.

The depiction also seem to have another man sitting on the lap of the Titan, humanlike but he didn't seem to have the same depiction as Incan emperors like Pachacuti, Atahualpa, Tupac Amaru let alone Manco Inca Yupanqui. Rather the humanoid figure had a significantly taller stature than the Incans worshipping him. At first she thought it was merely an artistic choice but the out of place clothing left her with even more questions.

She noticed however that in another depiction next to it this supposed unknown Incan emperor seem to hold something in his hands. A wheel or spherical object, one that was held aloft into the sky almost like the sun itself and from it, rays of light sparkled and reach out, touching the hearts and minds of the Incans and the Godzilla in the depiction. "What in the world?" She blunk and in a moment of haste, she took a photograph of the two depictions together.

Stuka came over to her and looked at the depictions of the Incan Emperor on the wall, he too felt something nauseous building up inside of him upon seeing the depiction. "Uh Stuka… tell me my optics are malfunctioning… because I'm fairly sure that no Incan emperor ever had quadruple arachnid legs for walking assistance." hearing this, Stuka simply blindly gave her a literal confirmation. "Your system appears to be nominal unit Athena. I however am experiencing some… uncomfortable feelings. Slight headache, aversion of unknown subject. Require more data input."

"Let's keep moving unless we want to be frostbitten mummies." Said Girain as she instinctively held Stuka's hand and tucked him slightly towards the direction of a nearby tunnel. He felt oddly calm and aroused when she held his hand, for a moment he felt his body chemicals and hormones had a brief spike, influencing his mind to hold on to her hand tighter as they traversed through a Godzilla sized tunnel.

For Girain, the feeling of his atomic warmth coursing through the robot gauntlet and glove of his Rex Unit suit gave Girain a slight pant and the feeling of pleasant company as she led him through a Godzillian tunnel out of the cavernous interior and out to a large valley.

The outdoor setting was a change in pace for the two of them with the sun shining down on their shiny metal exterior and reflected back into the sky, giving away their locations to the humans in the sky. They saw that the clouds had dissipated and allowing their IFF transponders to react appropriately to friendly signals.

Not far from their positions, Rick Stanton and Sam Coleman were aboard a Monarch marked CH-47C Chinook flying towards Vilcabamba with Sam working on a laptop trying to triangulate Girain's signal when suddenly his screen began to pick up faint signals of Girain's beacon and transponders coming from a valley deep within the mountains.

"I think I'm picking up her signal now. She's in a valley to the Northeast of the site's entry." Sam informed Rick, pointing him to the location highlighted on the screen. "Well that makes our job easier, but why is that Rex Unit sticking with her? And are they…" Rick's face turned pale with his expression turned to a much more embarrassing one.

"Sam… what do you think the old man is gonna say… when he sees this?" Stanton asked, pointing to the zoomed in overhead photo showing Girain and Stuka were apparently holding hands walking through the jungle of the valley. "Outside of Valentine's Day comment? Who knows." Coleman remarked with a shiver as they flew with a fleet of GDI Airborne Infantry transports ranging from UH-60 Blackhawks, Chinooks and MH-6 Little Birds escorting them into the narrow passes of the Andes.

On the opposite direction, a fleet of sleek, high tech angular stealth helos were seen flying over the jungles of the Amazon heading towards the Andes, they were in close proximity as well but these were all black aircraft with the Orion Sword emblem painted on their sides.

The fleet had two Heron transports though these were unmanned, with their vanguard being a quartet of RAH-66 Comanches alongside VTOL transports such as V-25 Goshawks, a stealth variant of the MV-22 Osprey. Sitting inside one of the Goshawk was an Orion Sword IT specialist with a military grade tablet on his lap as he pinched and pulled the screen to look up the valley's location where Stuka's GPS signal was being broadcast to them.

"Oh...uh...anybody here seeing this?" He asked awkwardly to the other Orion Sword troopers on the V-25 as they saw the photo of Girain and Stuka walking and holding hands together. "Is Athena being distracted from her mission?" One of them asked looking up the recorded footage and camera feed from Stuka's helmet optics. "If she is, then so is Stuka." Another grimace seeing the two mecha units apparently not killing each other for once.

[hr]

Down in the strange almost tropical like valley, Girain and Stuka noticed that the flora present there were strangely enough prehistoric. Stuka felt his dorsal plates and spines pulsiated to the radiation in the environment as he stepped on the grasses. He dug his ditigraded prosthetic legs into the ground, taking in the slightly ticklish sensation of having grass blades rustling under his feet.

He zoomed his optics on the blades of grass and leaves on tree branches and twigs and saw the patterns they had. The trees seem to have a segmented curve stump and body like modern day palm trees with the leaves at the top spread out into multiple directions like banana leaves or palm tree leaves. "Cretaceous period flora detected. It is impossible for them to grow on their own. Your hypothesis Unit Athena?" Stuka asked her before handing her a leaf for examination.

She took the leaf with both hands and observed its pattern, recording the heat signature and radiation level it emanates along with the samples for them to research. "I have no idea how is this possible. There are theories about gravity in pockets of the Earth, then there's the Hollow Earth theory…" She paused for a moment and looked up at his stiff and expressionless helmet, staring at him causing Stuka to blunk under his helmet and asked her. "Is something wrong?"

Girain gulped thickly as she stood up to Stuka and held the leaf in her hand as if it was a gift from him. "Well… there is something I need to ask you. Back at the corridor, you could have left me there and go on yourself. Why didn't you?" Hearing this Stuka seems to have an odd moment to process her question, he had an answer that was much more personal to her question. "You could have done the same to me at the gate, when the avalanche came, you saved me against the better logic of simply leave me to be buried in the snow or thrown off the mountains." Hearing this Girain had a moment of realization as her mouth opened slowly.

"Oh… well that was actually… I don't know what to say about that either." She awkwardly stuttered and look away for a moment being too embarrassed herself. "My odds of survival is greater if I cooperate with you. Therefore, it is only logical that I protect as you have protected me. There are reasons that motivate your action then that I have yet to understand." Girain smiled mentally hearing this, it was something of an assurance to her and an uplifting comment from her supposed enemy. "Well thank you Stuka…" She uttered out hesitantly almost like she was trying to hold back a giggle.

Their moment of calm didn't seem to last however when they heard an ear piercing hissing sound. From the sound alone, they could tell whatever creature there was reptile, but what size and species was unknown. They saw various smaller raptors like animals on the ground running towards them or into the nearby bushes and caves to hide. And before their very eyes, a massive serpent slither out of a hole on the wall.

This one Girain recognized as a Titanoboa, a super species of extinct giant python. It had the obvious dark green and smeared earth brown color scale on its body with the limbless body to slither around and perhaps burrow with a sharp shovel spade like head. However its size was giving away something very unnatural, the fact that there was a Titanoboa being the size of a Godzilla alone seem to make her grow very uncomfortable with the idea of what it could do next.

Stuka noticed that the eyelids of the boa seem to be greyed out, apparently suggesting that the serpent was blind. The monstrous python then lunged forward at Giran and Stuka, forking its tongue out to sniff the chemicals in the air before bending its head over to Girain's direction wrapped its coils around her left leg before rising up to her thigh and abdomen region.

The serpent snapped its jaw at her while using the massive muscle masses it had to snap her bones or choke her to death. But it soon learn that it could not feel her lungs or heartbeat of a living organic creatures. Confused, the Titan paused its hasty assault and sniff the chemicals in the air once again, giving Girain the time she needed to bite the python on its neck, causing it to hiss out in pain and agony.

However as she bit its neck, she felt that something was off with the serpent's flesh and scale, when her teeth dug into it, she felt an intense heat releasing from within forcing her to break off her bite and shove the serpent's coils and masses away. Stuka who saw this quickly pulled up his G36K Titan and open fire on the monstrous python seeing that it was slithering away writhing in pain. But they saw that despite being peppered with half a magazine and bleeding out, the serpent didn't seem at all fazed.

"You ready for this?" Girain asked Stuka as her railguns were switched on and ready for combat, Stuka nodded to her and took some steps ahead of her to take point and tilted his rifle to make sure the ejection port for spent shells won't bounce hot spent cases into the wall or bounce back at him and Girain. "Affirmative, I'll take point." Said Stuka as they began to track down the serpent in the valley.

The blood trail led them both towards what appeared to be a large cave entrance to another section of the complex, Stuka went inside first followed by Girain as they began to descend what could best be described as the stairways to Hell. The floor as far as their night vision modes allow them to see were well carved out stone staircases of the Incas, but the wall decors and motifs were Chimu bird, suggesting two merging cultures.

"Chimu Bird, when the Incas were overthrown by the Spanish Conquistadors, they retreated into the jungle and exist as a microstate in Vilcabamba, fighting off Spanish invaders with guerrilla warfare." Girain mused as she took notice of the multiple depictions of the Incans fighting protracted guerrilla wars against the Spanish with acts of sabotage, horse theft, stealing guns and others. "But Tawantinsuyus can never be remade." She finished grimly.

"Hold. I think it's just up ahead." Stuka pointed forward to a large open cavern where Girain detected the ambient temperatures to be noticeably higher than outside, a perfect nesting ground for a reptile.

The place appeared to have been sculpted and worked on by Incas and Chimus creating rows of pillars and columns in rectangular shapes, each one bearing images of Incan gods associated with Godzillasaur. Strangely enough, these Godzillians appear to be smaller than Jr with their coloration being albino fitting the snowy climate of the Andes.

"This must be the nest." Said Girain as she observed the area, she noticed volcanic smoke billowing out of the ceiling with mosses and patches of vegetation with bioluminescent scattered around the place.

Stuka saw the Titanoboa coiled up inside a corner with its head perching up on a rock observing the place from a vantage point where its tongue can sniff the chemicals in the air. He didn't hesitate and open fire his rifle at the serpent.

More of its flesh and scale were blown off, forcing the monstrous python to hiss out in pain and heighten aggression as it began to zigzag towards Stuka. "Careful he's aiming for you!" Girain called out urgently before firing off her railgun slugs at the python, her slugs traveled at much higher velocities than his rapid fire G36K rifle, slamming and thrusting through its hides drilling two massive gaping holes on its body.

And yet the python refused to die. It coiled around a pillar, reaching to the ceiling trying to find an escape. "Oh no you don't!" Girain grunted as she grabbed hold of its tail dragging it back down in a tug of war. The struggle cracked the ancient stone pillar before it crumbled away causing the serpent to fall down on the floors. "Stuka! Tonfa blades, now!" Girain called out to him, prompting Stuka to engage his tonfa blades and rush towards her, the python lash its tail around, slamming against his waist and threw him against the wall, the tremors rippled out causing more damages and rumbles to the ceiling.

"Must...not...fail...mission...objective." Stuka mumbled to himself before dashing forward and thrust the tonfa blades into the Titanoboa's head, his blade stuck out on the chin of the serpent, what soon followed was the Titanoboa's body writhing and spasming out before finally dying in the process in a pool of its own blood.

"N-nice hit." She complimented Stuka with a chuckle while he panted out nodding to her. "Thank you, couldn't have done it without you." He remarked to her before retracting his tonfas back into their wrist compartments.

"Let's wrap this up, I have a feeling that the roof is coming down on us soon…" She suggested to him with a hint of urgency as they look up to the ceiling noticing the various cracks rippling around. "Agreed, let us continue to the inner sanctum and leave." Stuka nodded before resuming their search.

The two went to the other side of the cave where they found a massive burial chamber, an inner sanctum isolated from the main complex of the Incans. The inner sanctum had more overt Chimu arts with their stylized birds, there were also Incan styled stone statues acting as totems guarding the entrance. In the center of the room exists a pedestal holding up a wheel like artifact levitating in mid-air. From an early glance it looks like a pocket watch's exterior and frame but the device strangely enough had a gem embedded on the outer frame.

Within the confines of an Incan burial chamber, they came across what appeared to be a Godzillian mummified skeletal remains. Draped in Incas pajama, and adorned with gold necklace jewelry and sitting on a throne next to the Godzilla mummy was a humanoid mummy flanked by two vaguely human bipedal mummies.

The presumed God-King of the Incas appeared to have a strange black silo like crown on his head with an amber yellow gem in the center of the crown. His clothes didn't look Incan rather they appear to be a set of robes with a collar made of unknown metal alloy around his neck bearing a boney grey color. There were four arachnid like mechanical legs attached to the collar suggesting he was relying on it as a walking assistance.

"Detected abnormal burial practice, discrepancies and conflicts with historical records." Stuka stated bluntly as he felt somewhat unnerved by the sight of the Godzilla mummy with the strange humanoid mummy. Girain looked up at the imagery of the banner hanging above, a rainbow banner with an Inti sun god face in the middle of the flag. "So this must be the God-King behind Tahuantinsuyu, but what would that mean for the Inca Emperors past?" Girain mused curiously as she came over to the artifact before snatching it off of the pedestal.

This however caused her to be zapped by a massive electric current causing her body to be gripped by the current. Reacting in shock, Stuka quickly held on to the artifact trying to remove it from her hand, only to be zapped by the same current. Their armors glew with strange hieroglyphic writing being imprinted on their bodies while their eyes were flashing bright. Girain and Stuka in turn were apparently taken from their bodies with their consciousnesses hovering over a vaguely defined void.

In a dream like scape, they saw three towering figures looming over a pyramid, their eyes gleam down to the small vaguely humanoid figures on the pyramid top with a judgemental gaze. Girain glanced back and forth trying to figure out what it all meant. Only a single phrase was uttered that gave her a hint.

_"YOU'VE DAMNED US ALL!"_ The vision then faded away, leaving the two lying on the ground shuddering and twitching with a splitting headache. "Ugh...ooooh...my head hurts. What just happened? Stuka? Stuka?" Girain called out to him, only to notice that he was writhing on the ground, twitching and seemingly overloaded by the information. "R-re-require assistance… data dump procedure… must be executed… too much…" He groaned and wheezed out before Girain then picked him up, carrying him on her back and made her way out of the tomb. "Don't worry Stuka, hang in there. I'm gonna take us to the LZ we'll be fine." She assured him nervously before making her way out of the tomb.


	3. Chapter 3: Shootout Inca

Chapter 3: Shootout Inca

October 25th, 2026

New York, USA

09:35 Hours, local time

Over by the Winters Estate in New York, the Billionaire was in his bedroom with the newly wedded wife, Jacqueline as the two spent their evening on their bed, flipping through magazine pages, booking a location for their Honeymoon.

"So what do you think? A trip to the Caribbean? Or maybe a Venetian vacation? I'm pretty sure that anyone of them would please your taste." Winters quipped as he twirled her hair, prompting Jacquline to chuckle playfully as she held him by the goatee and chin. "How about a nice Greecian vacation? I always want to see the Parthenon on the Acropolis." Said Natla.

Winters and her share a wicked and playful grin on their faces with their glares directed at one another. "Oooh do I get to be your hero in shiny armor?" Winters challenged her playfully before she then gave Winters a kiss on his lips.

"Dye your hair and shave the goatee, then you can be Achilles for all I care." She stated playfully before tossing her hair around. Cameron himself was swooned by her passionate kiss to the point he fell to his bed with his eyes in a loopy expression. "Sure thing babe. Whatever you say…" Said Cameron in a drunken tone.

With Winters down in a drunken daze, Natla let out a smirk and picked up her phone dialing a secured line and waited for the beeping to be done with. She soon heard someone picking up the phone and spoke through it. A male with a thick Arab accent, a high pitched voice and a bad pick up line. "Heeeey babe what's cooking? You like to have a chat with me? How about a dinner date somewhere?" He made smooching sound in the background, driving his point home.

"Ugh save it for the female spotted hyena. I'm sure your laugh will bring her over to sweep you off your feet." Said Natla with a grumble and an animalistic growl over the phone. "Rabi, I want results and I want them fast. Get me info on those Rex Units tech specs." She stated bluntly to Rabi who then made coughing sound on the other end of the call.

"Are you kidding me lady? Lemme guess you're still salty over Ray's death, aren't you?" Rabi asked while at the same time barely able to contain his flabbergasting. "Shut your yaps you Russian with a fake Arab name. Get me those Rex Unit tech specs. $500,000,000 as payment wire to your account." Natla bluntly promised to him, hearing this Rabi made a slow gasp sound. "I'm listening…" He uttered.

[hr]

At that same time in Peru…

They circled back and forth, prowling at each other, both GDI and Orion Sword troops were keeping their weapons trained on one another, one ridgeline to another. Up high in the mountains, there wasn't much of a frontline to speak of other than long winding Incan highways and mountain ridges. Rick Stanton and Sam Coleman were in their cold weather jackets standing by their CH-47F Chinook going over signal reception of Girain on their laptop. Sam's fingers danced across the keyboard as the dark navy blue tinted screen showed a satellite shot overlay of the Andes.

The yellow grid crosshairs moved across the screen with triangulation points trying to identify a fix location of Girain's signal, he sighed out as his effort was repeatedly thwarted by the difficult terrain blocking satellite signals and beacons built into Girain. "Any luck?" Stanton asked as he bounced back and forth between his station and Coleman's. "Nah not a thing, there's something blocking her signal, I can't seem to find her anywhere in this area." Said Coleman as he drank a cup of cocoa Chicha.

"Come on Sam, she got transponders, satellite signal, cell signal, she got everything built into her at least you can pick up one that's authentic." Stanton grumbled as he looked at the satellite tracking of the area. He found that the areas around what appeared to be a misty valley deep in the interiors of the Vilcabamba compound, he blunk and pointed Coleman to the square grid of the valley.

"Any ideas why this particular area is an electronic blackhole?" He asked Coleman who was perplexed by it as he attempted to conduct signal triangulation over the area. Only to find nothing. "No idea, but I think that's a good place to start." Sam let out a curious smirk as he ruffled his hair for a moment before grabbing a radio on the table.

"Angel 1-1 this is Ground Watch, can you make a search at grid Delta 8 Foxtrot 9, over?" He listened to the pilot of the Heron replied to him. "Affirmative ground, be advised our instruments are little wonky, we can't afford to stay there for long." The pilot of the Heron replied over the radio as she then flew towards the valley looking for Girain.

[hr]

Back in the War Room of GDI Blacksite, General Grady was observing the situation with great interest, seeing the symbols and pieces shuffle around with a 1 minute time lag to update their movements one at a time. The situation was effectively a Mexican stand-off with both the GDI and Orion Sword troops set up temporary camps away from one another.

The GDI had their field encampment by the foot of Vilcabamba's footpath while Orion Sword was up on the mountains by a clearing nearer to the site. So far there were no shots fired reports but the intense standoff was the perfect situation for a violent shootout at best, a flashpoint at worst.

He grumbled and stroked his beard frustratingly while his eyes were glued to the monitors displaying GDI and Orion Sword positions, the general was especially focused on a side monitor showing Girain's status to be "SIGNAL LOST" with her status display being in the red, assuming a lost or missing mecha unit.

However he soon had something else to worry about however, he noticed that something else has entered the area, a single MV-22 Osprey flew into the area keeping itself low to avoid radar detection with the craft popping up and disappearing on the radar screen every now and then. With the craft's IFF unresponsive to the GDI he was assuming the worst. "Anybody got a twenty on that VTOL?" He asked the technician and specialists in the room with one of them shaking his head nervously. "Negative sir, assuming hostile bird, but they don't appear to follow the same Orion Sword pack."

A bird lost from its flock? Unlikely to General Grady. He tapped his fingers on the desk and observe it carefully as the MV-22 disappeared one last time near Orion Sword's encampment. "Overlord to all units be advised we have possible hostile bird in the area. Repeat possible hostile bird, engage at your discretion but make sure you have positive ID before engaging." Said Grady over the satellite coms network.

[hr]

On the ground, Rick Stanton heard the broadcast playing over the radio and was immediately startled by it, he knew who this was other than Orion Sword. "Shiit, he's here." He uttered and look ominously over the mountain ridges towards where Orion Sword was. Much to his fear, Jonah's militants were in the region, after disembarking from their MV-22, they maneuvered through the mountain cracks and ridgeline, bounding along the Incan footpaths towards Orion Sword encampment.

The militants were fairly well equipped with FN Mk17 SCAR-H, M4A1, FN M249 SAW amongst other firearms they've procured. As they were approaching the Orion Sword encampment, one of the Orion's snipers in arctic camouflage uniform and snow white hoodie spotted some of the militants passing by. "Heads up, I got contacts incoming. Multiple foot mobiles closing on our 20!" He alerted his fellow Orion Sword troopers before taking a shot at one of the militants, his target fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood.

The others dived to the ground and open fire in full auto or bursts at the snowy ridges. Their weapons were suppressed not to maintain stealth but to avoid causing an avalanche on the high mountains. They tossed frag grenades up at the Orion Sword sniper, seamingly killing him in the frag explosions before pushing up further with the other pockets of Orion Sword troopers, scrambled to assume fighting positions.

"We got hostiles, it's Jonah's mercs! Suppressive fire!" One of the Orion Sword squad leader ordered his men as he opened fired his suppressed G36K rifle at his targets. The firefight saw bullets whizzing pass by the two parties, snow being popped up by impacting bullets, some Orion Sword troopers were hit along with Jonah's mercs. "We got hostiles moving in, looks like they're going for the data server!" One of the Orion Sword troopers shouted out sighting an additional enemy helo flying towards their camp, an NH-90 with snow white camouflage pattern.

Some ground fire were directed at the enemy bird, but with negligible effects as the NH-90 head for its drop zone, another helo flew over them, this one appeared to be a gunship and the Orion troops knew this was an AH-1E Cobra gunship, old model but would suffice with what they have here. The gunship autocannon spun up and fired at Orion pockets, sending some into hiding while others were ripped to shreds.

With the defenders being pinned and hammered down by the gunship, the NH-90 landed by a clearing and out came a squad of mercenaries personally led by Jonah. The aged colonel himself was seen in wintery smeared grey fur coat with his troops fanning out protecting him in a diamond formation as they make their way up to the hill where Orion Sword datacache was.

The Orion Sword troopers defending the datache saw a much larger force coming towards and were reasonably concerned by the prospect of being overrun. The small squad there attempt to suppress the incoming hostiles with their small arms and grenades. But with their elements caught off guard this bad, help might not come soon enough.

[hr]

Over by the GDI encampment, the Task Force saw the firefight going on with concern brewing in their minds. Knowing Jonah's men and their leader's apathy towards human life, they were itching to join the fight. The GDI troops wearing their snowy white mountain top camouflage pattern with black or green gloves held their weapons tight trained their sights on the other side of the mountains and prepared themselves for Jonah's men possible assault on themselves.

As they were preparing for combat, Girain was emerging from the mountain compound's main gate, pushing it out with Stuka's help. The entrance itself had its snow being dug out somewhat by GDI troops using bulldozers they airlifted to the mountain tops using CH-47F Chinooks before, and it made their exit all the easier. "What's going on here?" She asked on the radio confused, her voice crackled and fizzled due to the effects of the artifact she was holding in her hand.

"We have eyes on Jonah's mercs, they're attacking Orion Sword's encampment just on the other side of the mountain. Uhh… should we engage?" The Task Force commander nervously asked Girain while she noticed the dazed and still overloaded Stuka crawling on the ground struggling to hold himself up to much less move to assist his human superiors. "Must… assist… friendly Orion… assets." He uttered wheezing.

Girain herself was in no better shape as she collapsed to the ground on her knees struggling to hold the artifact in her palm. "You're… weapons free, kick their ass." She ordered him tersely, to which the Task Force commander smirked. "Yes mom, we'll do it. All callsigns this is Papa Bear actual, weapons free, I repeat weapons free. Let's kick some ass!"

With that the GDI troops began to mobilize some elements to assist Orion Sword, leading the charge was a squadron of their fast moving AH-6 Little Birds flying in V formation armed with minigun and Hydra rocket pods. Followed by a quartet of Blackhawk utility helicopters flying in similar formation heading Eastward towards where Orion Sword was.

"Angel 1-1, this is 0-6, you're clear 5 mikes to target, weapons free on anything Jonah. Guns guns guns." The radio chatter relayed messages to one another as the AH-6 first strafe over the mercenaries, some of the Little Birds hover and strafe with their miniguns on Jonah's mercenaries. Two other Little Birds were busy buzzing around the larger and more heavily armed Cobra gunship, they used their agile speed to swarm around the slower and more sluggish gunship.

Despite having a sleeker frame, the Cobra was unable to take on two enemies at once and drove off with the Little Birds strafing the Cobra, damaging its airframe and rotors. The barrage of AP minigun bullets managed to take its toll against the Cobra gunship and it began to bellow out a plume of smoke as the helo descend in altitude the further west it went.

Caught off guard by the entry of the GDI into the fray, Jonah's mercenaries began to focus fire on the Little Birds as the flying eggs skirt around the battlefield firing off their weaponry at them. Some of the mercenaries that were being personally led by Jonah were busy pushing up to the data cache tent of Orion Sword with smoke grenades to obscure their movement before sprinting forward laying down fire in bounding maneuvers.

The Orion troopers there were forced back away from the tent to save themselves, one of them was crouching and laying down covering fire for his teammates with his G36K. He was about to make a turn and run for stones and sandbag covers when Jonah gunned him down from behind in cold blood. The Colonel shot his target with a G17 pistol with a well aimed leading shot, the Orion Sword trooper fell to the ground, with his body gone cold on the Andean wind and snow blowing over a pool of his own blood.

"Get to work, set up security and get those Rex Unit tech specs. Our time is shorter than expected." Jonah sighed out nonchalantly as he had his men went to work, some shooters set up by edge of the tent's sandbag covers while others with Laptops and USBs were busy trying to bypass Orion Sword data hub trying to access their Rex Unit tech specs. But their effort was further hampered by the security measures put into place.

The GDI Blackhawks hovered over the clearings and dropped their ropes down on the ground letting the GDI troops onboard fast rope down with their weapons locked and loaded with the troops approached Jonah's mercenaries on the flank and descend upon them. Once on the ground, the GDI infantry squad wearing digital white arctic camouflage wearing MICH with combat goggles to protect their eyes from snow and wind. Armed with M4A1s and M249 SAW Para with various attachments to their weapons, they began to push forward at Jonah's men.

The GDI troops refrained from tossing frag grenades, instead they sneak up behind the mercenaries by the data cache tent and began to open fire at the occupants, catching them off guard. "Damn it, we need to leave now! How's the data cache?" Jonah grunted while ducking in the tent, narrowly dodging incoming fire and bullets that ripped through the tent's fabric.

"We haven't got through the security protocols yet, we-" The technician of Jonah was shot in the back and fell down by a stray GDI bullet. "NO!" The colonel shouted out in a fit of fury. Seething with anger, frustrated by the sudden intervention of the GDI, he gestured for his men to retreat with him off the mountains. "We're leaving. Alternate LZ is 5 klicks from here let's hope we can get there." Said Jonah as he then ran away from the tent with his survivors towards the Amazon jungle basin.

"They're falling back, should we pursue over?" One of the squad leader of the GDI asked his commander over the radio. "Negative, do not, I repeat do not pursue. Regroup and consolidate set up security before they come back."

"Affirmative Papa Bear, we'll do, Black 2-1 out." The GDI troops would then enter a defensive posture with entrenching equipment being deployed to dig up fighting positions and sandbags ready to brace themselves against another assault. Orion Sword troopers there took notice and breathed a sigh of relief at the sudden intervention of their rival the GDI.

[hr]

Monitoring the situation from their hidden base, Mr. Grey and Joe observe the flashpoint played out with concern, though their men were saved by the GDI's sudden intervention, it was too much of a close call for them to comfort. "What do you make of that?" Joe asked casually while Grey sighed out bending over the table looking at the holographic display of infantry and heliborne units move about. "Surprising, but welcome nonetheless. How do you think they were jumped on?" He retorted.

Joe stroke his chin, looking over his shoulder briefly before back at the Tactical map display. "A moe." He claimed, to which Grey nodded. "Just what we need, get me Athena on the line, I think it's time we have a little chat." Grey ordered and Joe quickly turn over to the nearby communication officer and whispered instructions into his ear, the officer nodded to Joe and tapped on his keyboard to track Girain's satellite radio frequency and dial her. While then, Grey watched as Giran and Stuka were being examined by GDI troops at the gates of Vilcabamba.

The young men there were measuring their radiation level before coordinating disinfectant bath on the two while they were lying down on their stomachs. Trucks carrying disinfectant high powered water were brought up to the mountain top with their hoses dragged out aiming at Girain and Stuka before both of them were being sprayed with water. The helmet camera feed of Stuka at first was still scrambled before finally restored to full functionality.

"At least they're providing them with needed services. But we are in no position to trust them completely yet." Grey sighed out.

[hr]

Out in the field as Girain and Stuka were being washed with the ground personnel running geiger meters over them detecting radiation levels being no higher than what a normal Titan would emit. The humans fell back and allow Girain to slowly pick herself up, she was grunting by the stiff and numbness of her body but they were on the downward direction as she took a crack at her neck.

Stuka did the same as he stood up but with his prosthetic legs, he felt twitches of static electricity affecting his nerves system causing him to stump or twitch his toes slightly every now and then. He saw a call request from Joe and answered it on his HUD. He nodded as Joe spoke to him before he then wire the call to Girain's own HUD. "Unit Athena, Orion Command is pending communication with you." Said Stuka in a stiff manner.

"Is there a reason for that?" She asked, to which Stuka simply monotonously remarked, "Your performance has been commendable and Orion Command is pending for communication with you." Hearing this Girain let out a cautious hum in thought before she mentally hit the answer button. Her HUD show a caller ID from Orion Sword with a video call of Joe and Mr. Grey being displayed for both her and Stuka to observe.

"Mr. Grey? Why do I have the pleasure of receiving you?" Girain asked with a bit of sarcasm to which Grey let out a soft huff. "To put it short. Thank you for taking care of Stuka. Your judgement of the situation seems to be rather… reasonable." He stated calmly to her, Girain however felt a bit ruffled by it but kept her calm. "Right… but my concern for Stuka is out of survival." She replied with a sigh. "Not from where I'm standing, if it was truly out of the need for survival, you could have left Orion Sword elements on the mountains be overrun by Jonah's men." He retorted and it made her feel rather unease by her own decision making.

"That was because Jonah is a wanted man. He could have turned his gun on us as well if given half the chance." She defended herself only to let out a sigh in the process. Grey hearing this was feeling amused and interested in the conversation they were having. Each and every word coming out of her voice box, her rhetoric and reasoning seem sound from both a military and political strategist standpoint. "Considering the situation, I would suggest a truce between our forces. For the time being that is, seeing that Jonah is a common enemy." Grey asked her softly.

Girain thought for a moment, she knew that it would make some sense for them to temporarily turn their eyes on Jonah, but she had no authorities to officially agree to that. Furthermore, Orion Sword could potentially do something else behind GDI's back. However, this was not the first time Orion Sword cut a deal and actually hold their end of the bargain.

"I accept that but this agreement is strictly under the table." Said Girain and Grey let out a soft relief sigh. "Thank you Athena. I'll have my men set up a data cache for you and Stuka at the base of the valley. I suggest you two head there to initiate a data dump procedure." Highlighted on Girain's map was a valley area at the base of the footpath where she started her adventure.

Reluctantly agreed to it, Girain and Stuka proceeded to travel down the footpath with the Rex Unit being helped down the footpath by Girain holding him up. As they went down the footpath, VTOLs of Orion Sword and GDI conventional Helicopters such as CH-47F and UH-60V Black Hawks flying cargo lift sorties and MEDEVAC the wounded to a neutral ground where they can be treated.

The troops from both sides were seen setting up new tents for Triage centers, Field Hospital and new data hubs for the Mecha data processing needs. Once Girain and Stuka got down to the ground the air thicken and they felt at last at a more temperate and normal condition.

Girain placed the artifact down in the middle of the camp where they can see it, the humans of both GDI and Orion looked at it in awe and wonder. One of them emerged from an Orion Sword marked technical server tent. A rather pudgy looking man with quite a bit of fat in his stomach.

He appeared to be a middle aged Caucasian man with some bits of grey hair on his head. On his black Orion cold weather jacket he had his nametag "Barringer" on with his cap denoting his role as the organization's Chief Engineer and Technical Expert. He gasped at the sight of the enormous for human artifact as technicians and mechanics swarm around it trying to attach various suction cups and probes to monitor the energy pulses of the artifact.

The two mecha units were given designated pads of their own, hastily assembled together with braces for their legs to keep them in place as Girain and Stuka stood on those pads with the two were plugged into a data hub to conduct data dumbing procedure. This in effect gave Girain and Stuka both metal gurgling sounds and the occasional grumble as they felt their minds were being purged of excessive data forcefully fed into them.

Coleman and Stanton in their tents looking on their Laptop screens monitoring the two mecha data feed and compared that to the artifact. Coleman stroked his beardy chin looking at camera feed and audio recording from Girain and Stuka. The same operation was playing out in Barringer's tent as he and Orion Sword's technicians observe with great interest and concern. Both sides observed the two explore the tomb of Vilcabamba and its underground city of the Inca. Stunned and captivated, at a loss for words. Coleman and Stanton simply sat glued to their screen looking at the majestic Incan refuge hidden in the mountains.

"Jesus this is like The Lost World and we're the crew." Stanton mused as he watched the clips where Girain fought off the Titanoboa with Stuka's help and their wrestling of the python inside its lair deep within the tomb of the strange God-King. "What do you think this is? That thing emits radio and signal interference, like a jamming device that prevents us from finding the place. Possibly blocked their signals along with the mountain caves." Colemen hypothesized.

"Could be. It's probably the sound it emits block off our coms with her. Girain can you talk?" Stanton asked her after putting on his earpiece, she then replied back to him while having her body in a power down mode. "Affirmative I hear you. You're getting the mission records? You'll about to start a new tourist site real soon." She remarked half joking, Barringer who was listening let out a slight chuckle hearing her sense of humor.

"Now that's one helluva woman if you hear one." Barringer commented amusingly. "You think Grey might have other plans for her?" One of the Orion Sword troopers in the tent asked him, to which Barringer nodded to him. "You can bet your nickel and dime on that one." He utter in remark.

"Stuka what's your take on Athena?" Barringer called Stuka from his headset prompting the Rex Unit to reply to his human superior in the usual, dull robotic voice. "Unit Athena's performance is exceptional. Displaying both pragmatic cooperation and sound strategic calculations. She appeared to display genuine concern for my safety and well being."

Hearing this Barringer sat on his comp and forwarded the live conversation to Grey who listened in closely with great interests as the debriefing continue. "Any ideas why she would protect you? Even though you two are enemies?" Barringer asked, to which Stuka replied without hesitation. "Unknown, assuming data collected from previous reconnaissance and observation of her performance with Unit Corsair, it is reasonable to assume that she has experience working with Rex Units."

Barringer nodded to Stuka and stroke his chin in thought. "That explains why the GDI call her 'Mom'. You two better stick together, I think this Op isn't over yet, not by a long shot." He concluded the debriefing while observing the recorded footage of Girain and Stuka's adventure inside Vilcabamba and their encounter with a giant Titanoboa up to discovering the tomb of the ancient Godzilla.

"Alright, from the looks of them, I think I can work out a rough translation here, it says 'Here lies Qualopec, God King of all men. Avatar of Inti and ruler of all under Heaven. One of the Triumvirate of Atlantis'?" Girain paused and blunk seemingly confusion while Stuka remain oddly calm and stoic with the revelation. "Running linguist dialect check, no errors found in translation based on known data. Flawless performance unit Athena." He commented, seemingly missing the point of why Girain was confused.

"Atlantis? Coleman do we have any records of Atlantis in Monarch?" Hearing her request, Sam quickly typed on the keyboard of his laptop and forward to her some video archives of Monarch drones during Serizawa's last day on Earth. "Not a lot, we speculate that it could be real but never actually have concrete evidence to suggest it. Until we found this ruin." Said Coleman and Girain thanked him. "Alright thanks Sam, I think we might have to start working on those Atlantis files now. Sending the translation to you now."

With that Girain began to pack the data she found and translated into a folder symbol and sent it to Sam's email address, once the process was done, she sat down and sighed out next to Stuka. "Well another day, but definitely not another job at the office." She commented prompting Stuka to cock his head aside curiously. "Your statement suggest the experience is… abnormal, beyond intended parameters?" Stuka asked densely.

"Yes… it has been a long and strange day. Normally it would civilian evacuation, Titan deterrent, humanitarian relief efforts. Not tomb raiding." Girain leaned back, arching her head and body before lying down on her back, in the process Stuka trailed his eyes along her body length, he paid careful attention and took meticulous mental notes of Girain's bulkier body build and her albino armor color. He made a slight rumble in his throat as he came over to her still standing upright looking down at her torso where her trio of chest panels were, there he saw a Monarch symbol with an MFS-4 ATHENA insignia painted on.

"What's your daily routine like then Stuka? I suppose it's endless drills?" her voice pierced Stuka's ears and startled him even when she didn't notice him looking at her body. "Uh my routines are training for operation, practice CQC and perform strategic recon into Siberia and Iran." He disclosed to her though his voice became noticeably much more nervous than before. "You… have… a… rather… elegant chassis unit Athena." he stuttered awkwardly causing Girain to perk her head up surprised. "Excuse me?" She asked cautiously.

Stuka of course was growing intensely nervous and looked away from her denying what he had just blurted out. "Nothing, my apologies, I didn't mean to make lewd remarks about your appearance." He sat down but with his back facing her causing Girain to feel somewhat sympathetic towards him as she stood up and walked over to him and wrapped her hand around his shoulder and neck.

"Actually it's… nothing really. I think it was nice to hear that, I mean it was a nice compliment." She awkwardly reassured him as he looked at her face in surprise. "It was nice?" He asked and she nodded. "Yeah it was, look I know that Rex Units aren't the social types but I'm more than willing to help if we're not busy shooting each other." She stated calmly with a soft and soothing tone, giving Stuka a moment of relief as he sighed out and pressed his head against her chest and abdomen region, a Godzilla's sign of affection as he rubbed against her on instinct. "Thank you Unit Athena."


	4. Chapter 4: All is fair

Chapter 4: All is fair

Blacksite Mike-India 04

October 27th, 2026; 10:24 AM

Two days ago she was in Peru searching for ancient artifacts. Now she was home relaxing and continuing her intended role, a sort of Titan photographer. She swam under the ocean with Jr once again as the still teenage for the Titans Godzilla was out hunting his usual meal of giant sea serpent. She kept back behind him to avoid startling his prey by her unnatural appearance.

Jr himself simply continued his hunting trip prowling the area and sea bed for giant sea serpents that inhabit the area. As they were heading somewhere Northwest of the archipelago, Jr felt something was not right, he could tell by the strange radiation within the area that there was another Godzilla beside him. Not his father, but definitely another one.

He began to growl and snarl knowing that his territory was being invaded and upon hearing this Girain felt equally alarmed as she slowed down her swimming and began to adjust to the currents. She looked forward and sideways to spot the intruder, as Jr and Girain pivot east ward gently till they were facing north.

They soon came across the intruder of the Blacksite, Stuka! She exclaimed and her human superiors heard her over the radio. She saw that Stuka was entangled by a Sea Serpent as it was trying to suffocate the Rex Unit, not contend to let him die, she quickly accelerated and swam towards him for rescue. She didn't have much mounted weapons on but she did have her oral AZC and chest mounted Plasma Grenade Launcher to use but even then those would damage Stuka and might trigger unwanted combat.

Instead, once she got close up to the Sea Serpent she bite it on the neck and prying it out of his neck giving Stuka room to breath. Feeling relief, Stuka quickly let loose his tonfa blades, slicing through the scaly hides of the Sea Serpent. He then kicked the serpent's underbelly to scatter it away while Girain and Jr sliced and clawed their way through the Sea Serpent's neck and midsection.

Stuka swung his tonfa blades slicing the serpent's body into several pieces, all equal lumbs of meat and blood on the ocean floor. Measured twice cut once, Girain thought. "Thank you for the assistance. This Titan ambushed me while I was searching for you." Said Stuka as Girain remained in place circling around him like a shark to prevent him from escaping or do something funny. "What are you doing here Stuka? Covert Reconnaissance? I'm surprised that the subs haven't caught up to you right now."

"I was shadowed by a GDI submarine, SeaWolf class. SIGINT by Orion Sword suggest… all is normal." Stuka replied in an even tone to Girain through the coms system of his helmet. Jr was most visibly alarmed by the sight of Stuka, an unfamiliar mecha unit in his territory so he instinctually growl and snarl at Stuka assuming a defensive lurch posture. His hands curled around the round lumps of serpent meat keeping his meal close to him while standing next to Girain to protect his maternal figure. "So they let you in. No doubt to see what your end goal is. Well I'm here for you now." Girain sighed out to Stuka as she glanced over to Jr and gestured him to calm down in front of Stuka.

He saw that she was taking one of the spare lumb of meat from the ocean bed and looked at her mannerism, he could tell that she was hosting this strange mecha unit and nodded to her slowly. "Alright Jr, you should head home now. I'll see you again soon. Stuka follow me please."; "Affirmative Unit Athena." It seems a bit off to her though, he seems to be easy on obeying orders, especially from her. Only Orion Sword top brass could give him such an explicit instruction to obey her and exercise self restraint like this.

"Interrogative, where exactly are we going Unit Athena?"; "We're heading to my place, it's nearby so we can sit down without having guns pointing at us." Hearing this Stuka was slightly confused at best as he followed Girain while Jr was off to his home. He swam with her towards the nearby beach and surfaced slowly. The two knew that their ability to surface might cause a tsunami and were trained to be mindful of their approaches.

Once they waded ashore they shook their bodies to throw off water droplets off of their armor and let the metal glisten under the sun, she led the navy blue cyborg Godzilla through the jungle footpath towards a den carved into the nearby foothill of the island's mountain. Upon reaching the entrance Stuka switched on his helmet's night vision mode to assist him in navigating the dark cave, while Girain was leading the way.

"Here we are, my living space." Said Girain as they reached a spacious part of the cave which was surprisingly dry and windy. There she apparently a thermo generator set up and hooked up to the light, Stuka saw that she had a workshop and natural living space to herself, a mixture of modern equipment and tools with natural scenery.

A stone bed that she carved out, workbench with assortment of tools, a shelf to place various spare parts for her MFS armor chassis as well as private experiments and tinkering tools. Inside the den Stuka saw that Girain used a corner with some banana leaves to wrap foraged food around. Much to his surprise, she seem to wrap the banana leaves around the lump of sea serpent like a rolled up rug and sprinkle some salt on it to preserve the food.

"Are you expecting someone?" Stuka asked curiously as she tied a knot around the banana leaves using jungle vines. Girain nodded while working on the lump. "I'm expecting some family members so to speak. It's Shiryu and Chikiryu. I just hope that they're informed or at least debriefed on the thing in Peru." Confused, Stuka cocked his head to the side asking another question. "Weren't Unit Corsair and Santa Muerte briefed on your latest deployment?"

"God knows, I was in a bit of quarantine from the hangar. They don't know what else happened to me and you so I guess they're playing it safe." She mused and sighed out before finally done wrapping up the lump of meat and stood up walking over to the work bench. "You uh pack any firearms?" She awkwardly asked Stuka and he nodded blankly, his right thigh compartment slides open revealing that he had what appeared to be a Titan sized USP45.

From the looks of the pistol, it had a gunmetal dark grey finnish with a rectangular barrel similar to most military model. The bottom rail of the pistol appeared to have a laser targeting sight attached to it and the moment Stuka had his finger on the trigger the laser lit up with a dot on the ground with him moving it around to demonstrate the weapon's handling and aiming for Girain. He then flipped it around and handed it to her and let her inspect it herself.

"You guys seem to like Heckler and Koch. You were packing a G36K in Peru, now this for a covert recon op." She commented before releasing the magazine and inspect its load finding that the magazine apparently was at the standard 12 round load. She also inspected the chamber finding it to be well greased and cleaned. "Affirmative. H&K weapons are well designed and allow for effective operation and versatility." Stuka remarked.

"The sentiment is mutual between us. To be honest, I prefered a 416 if I can have one my size that is." Said Girain with a slightly higher pitched voice, he noticed that it sounded like she was giggling under her breath. At best it was a suggestion that she apparently didn't seem so hostile towards him at the moment. "Orion Sword engineering might be able to fulfill your request provided that proper clearance is given." Said Stuka before they were intruded upon by two shadows casting over them.

"Fricking clearance needed alright! What the hell are you doing here with my sister!?" Shiryu screamed out at Stuka with his thigh compartment slid open allowing him to quickly grab his laser pistol and aimed it at Stuka's face. Stuka in turn reoriented himself at Shiryu with his tonfa blades engaged and crossed before his face like a shield. "Unit Corsair is displaying heightened aggression, initializing self defense and preservation protocol."

Next to Shiryu was the female Rex Unit known as Chikiryu "Santa Muerte" who didn't seem so alarmed at all by Stuka's appearance and simply giggled gleefully at the sight of the Orion Sword Rex Unit in the same place as Girain.

"Awww how cute, looks like you just found your boyfriend, sis. If only he wasn't too much of a brick." Chikiryu quipped gleefully only to see Girain jerked her head back slightly and took a hasty step back from Stuka holding her hands up defensively.

"No no no. We're not boy and girlfriend! We're not in a relationship!" Girain denied flatly only to have Shiryu become much more irritated even by the mere thought of her in a relationship with Stuka. "WHAT!? YOU TWO ARE WHAT NOW!? HELL NOOOOOO!"

Shiryu trained his weapon at Stuka's face ready to fire, only to have Girain ran out in front stopping him from even pulling the trigger. Seeing this Shiryu had his eyes wide open under the helmet as she stood firmly in front of Stuka preventing Shiryu from pulling the trigger out of the blue.

"Sis… wh...why are you...defending him? He's from Orion Sword!" He flabbergasted and exclaimed in surprise prompting Chikiryu to huff out and patted Shiryu's shoulder, "Oh poor Rexy, it's so obvious. She's in love with Stuka! Of course she would have to defend her boyfriend." Said Chikiryu before she burst into a laugh out loud moment, at the expense of Girain and Shiryu.

"What is the implications of romance between us Unit Athena?" Stuka asked blankly. "You see Chiki? He doesn't know romance, he's basically me when I first came here. He's just using you Girain!" Shiryu shouted out loud in protest before being dragged outside by Chikiryu.

"Now now now Rexy, stop being melodramatic and let these two love birds be. We'll be right outside if you two need us, just don't get screwy right away.~" Chikiryu chuckled playfully as she dragged Shiryu out of Girain's den much to his chagrin as he struggled to break free of her grasp.

"What was that all about?" Stuka asked in a seemingly confused manner as he lowered his guard and slipped his tonfa blades back inside his wrist gauntlets. "Uhh… it's just teasing. Nothing really." Girain replied dismissively before looking outside of her den. "Come on, let's forage some woods, maybe that should clear our minds for a moment." Stuka nodded to her suggestion as he too felt that it was rather confusing to further dwell on the thoughts of them possibly engaging in romantic and erotic activities.

The moment they went outside of the den they saw Chikiryu holding Shiryu's hand to make sure he doesn't react in blind rage or emotional outburst at Girain being so close to Stuka. "What are you doing here? Why are you with her? Is this some sick joke?" Shiryu asked demandingly towards Stuka who cocked his head aside curiously and replied dryly, "I am here on assignment to conduct rendezvous and covert reconnaissance on MFS-4 Type-4 Unit Athena." He utterly bluntly causing Shiryu to have a near violent outburst trying to maul Stuka. "I knew it! I frickin' knew it! That bastard is here to spy on my sister while she's taking a shower!"

Before he could throw himself at Girain, Chikiryu simply grabbed him by his shoulders and slammed him down on the ground and sat on his back pressing herself down on him in a rather dominant manner. "Sooooo sorry about him. It's not like we don't know what you're here for. We know that Orion Sword poured most of their resources on spying Girain because they're drooling nerds." Chikiryu snickered and winked at Stuka causing him to stand up right and tilted his head out of confusion and awkwardness. "Uhh… could you stop it please? Look we'll catch up in a minute, Stuka and I are going to get some dry wood."

Chikiryu chuckled and nodded to Girain while keeping Shiryu down on the ground while the two were gone. Girain and Stuka went into the nearby jungle looking for dry wood from various tree branches and picked others off the ground if they have any tree branches broken. Stuka noticed that Girain pick and choose branches on the ground that were broken and fallen off of trees naturally, he inspected one he picked up with thermal imaging and found that they tend to be rather hot. Particularly high on the heat spectrum making potential fire hazards in the area.

He instinctively picked up the branches and twigs and gathered them into well stacked lumps in his hands as he began to follow Girain back to her den once he saw that she was content with the amount they have gathered. Once they were back, Shiryu and Chikiryu were seen sitting by the den's entrance waiting for them to arrive and disclose certain things. "So how was your date?" Chikiryu teased Girain and giggled knowing that if she could Girain would be blushing at the statement.

"Can you please stop?" Girain groaned as she set the woods down on the ground, then built a fire outside of the den to BBQ the serpent meat lump. Seeing this Shiryu went to help her make an improvised meat grill and support sticks for the meat lump as they began to grill it for their lunch. "So they kept you guys in the dark?" Girain asked them while she rotated the grill.

"Well yeah big girl, I mean they haven't told us a single thing about your ops and why is the Orion Sword Rex Unit here your boyfriend." Chikiryu added pointing at Stuka who remained a dull brick and unresponsive to her statement other than odd curiosity as he shuffle his prosthetic legs against the blades of grass on the ground and the smell of Girain's cooking began to assault his nose.

"Unit Athena, you are programmed with gourmet and cooking skills?" Stuka asked curiously as he slowly lurched forward taking a closer look at the lump of meat that Girain was grilling. "Well yes, I was programmed with survival skills, foraging included. They showed me the ropes to identify plants and animals I can hunt on my own in case if I'm stranded." Hearing this Stuka was quite curious and lost for words as to why she was trained with such skills.

To him she was a mecha unit and wouldn't need those and here she was, impressing him and making him feel genuinely curious about her methods and knowledge. "Awww the brick guy is drooling his mouth at Girain's cooking. Nice going sis."; "So what was your last operation about?" Shiryu asked finally having been able to hold himself in tolerating the presence of Stuka for a good long 5 minutes. "Well… you wouldn't believe what happened to me." Girain hesitantly stated to Chikiryu.

[hr]

Meanwhile in Orion Sword base in Central Asia, Grey and Joe were observing Girain's interaction with Stuka with great interest, they were using a large holographic screen projected on the glass of their conference room. Barringer, Grey and Joe Marshall sat by their chairs and watched cautiously as Girain sliced the serpent meat into improvised bowls and plates for the Rex Units first before leaving one for herself. "Any reasons why she's a Titan Masterchef?" Joe asked casually laying back on his chair. "No ideas, intel on her suggest that MFS-4 Athena has synthetic organs. Intercepted medical maintenance reports suggest that her bone has somehow regenerated some organic functions including a nuclear furnace." Said Barringer stroking his chin.

"Fascinating. She never ceases to amaze." Grey commented watching her enjoying a meal with the other two Rex Units. The three Rex Units were having their helmets removed allowing them to enjoy their meals freely without smearing their visors and electronics. Stuka appeared to have a more narrow snout with cat like eyes irises with longer saber like fangs in his mouth.

[hr]

"Girl that's one helluva an adventure you got there. I'm crazy jealous! I mean ancient lost city, civilization lost in time, MacGuffin artifact that can change the world? No way can me and my Rexie can measure up." Chikiryu exclaimed in amazement with Shiryu nodding seemingly out of a mixture of respect and amazement towards his sister. "No kidding, you're basically leaving us in the smoke."

As they were enjoying their meal, Girain suddenly heard a beeping sound on her HUD and she found a caller ID from Coleman straight from the MONARCH lab where the Scion of Atlantis was being researched. She mentally hit the reply button and saw a window for video call from Sam popped up. "Hey Sam, what's up in the lab? Got any scoop from our mystery artifact?"

Sam nodded to Girain as he then reached his hands out to adjust the camera view of the laptop to a slightly similar looking man with chin goatee and well groomed hair and a pair of glasses on his face. "Girain I think we found something, the Scion that you brought back appeared to be some sort of computer. I'm not sure on its full potential but it seems to contain a massive trove of data that we're still deciphering and analyzing right now. So far there are parchments of a letter."

Hearing this Girain mentally blunk in surprised and grew increasingly curious as she stood up slowly and walked to a private secluded spot to listen in on the call. "A letter? Any ideas what's it about?" Coleman then chimed in to explain what he learned from the Scion. "We were able to find out a name referenced in that letter, Tihoucan. Along with a location somewhere in the Hellenic world, the coordinates correspond to that of the Island of Rhodes and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, somewhere in that area."

"Right, so we are basically looking at another Atlantian tomb perhaps?" She asked cautiously and Sam nodded to her. "Uh yeah that's what we think, we uh… also did some forensic DNA sampling of the Godzilla found in Vilcabamba, we called him Pachacuti after the Incan Emperor. We found some DNA samples that for some reasons, correspond to you." Eli took off his glasses and rubbed his tired dull eyes and yawned no doubt from tireless days at work. Hearing the geneticist statement though it made Girain had a sudden yelp out of surprise. "Wait? Similar to me? How similar? What kind of genetic pattern are we talking about?"

Her curiosity was rewarded with a data chart showing the DNA and MRA patterns of Pachacuti and that of her own when her skeletal remains was found and forensic DNA analysis was conducted. Much of the patterns were different in some ways, while there were two patterns paralleling one another almost perfectly.

"What are these?" Girain asked curiously as usual. "We isolated these genetic traits, they correspond to cognitive and higher brain functions. Practically similar to human sentience. The other thing we found is that this genetic pattern is not normal." Eli scratched the back of his head nervously prompting Girain to glance back at the Rex Units by the campfire before looking back at the jungle around her. "Do you have any references?" Eli nodded to Girain's question and pulled up an image of Godzilla's DNA and that of Jr for comparison.

As far as they know the Gojira family in the area is the most natural and by far the most well known and documented specimens of the species due to the low number of wild Godzilla to conduct research on multiple members of the species.

She saw that indeed beside the genetic patterns that determined their traits, physical and biological features, Godzilla and Jr did not have similar genetic patterns like her and Pachacuti. "Also Girain, we know from experience that Shiryu and Chikiryu DNA are natural Godzilla with some tampering that we know of. But this pattern we found in you and Pachacuti suggest something else entirely."

"What about Stuka? You saw how the Scion glow at both me and Stuka right?" Girain asked looking back at Stuka who was still sitting stiff like a statue while Shiryu and Chikiryu were stacking the used dishes. "We did. It might have been because the Scion was in close proximity to you. But who knows. I suggest you take Stuka to the lab so we can take his DNA sample for analysis." Girain nodded in agreement to the suggestion by Eli before walking out of the privacy of the treeline back to the campfire.

"Hey uh Stuka, they're uh asking for your presence in the lab." Hearing this Stuka blurbed out surprised alongside Chikiryu and Shiryu who were both caught off guard by the request. "Wait for real? Why would they? That's top secret and why Stuka? He's the enemy." Shiryu protested to Girain while Stuka looked at her confused and hesitant to take her order.

"Please disclose the reason for this request Unit Athena. My restriction is not to allow myself to be captured and my DNA studied or my technology compromised." Stuka stuttered nervously as Girain reached out to hold his hand and helped him up to his feet. "Don't worry about it, it's just something to do with the Scion. I think this thing is taking up the #1 position on the priority list." Girain replied to reassure him and gently tapped his hand with hers giving Stuka a moment to sigh in relief. He then put on his helmet and have it locked up to cover his face for good measure as he then began to walk with Girain still holding her hand out of nervousness.

Shiryu and his girlfriend followed them closely with Chikiryu giggling while he remained quiet but nervous at the sight. "That looks like my cue to set up a romantic dinner later." Chikiryu chuckled playfully as they traveled back to the GDI Base on the island. It was an Air-Naval Base similar to what the US Navy would build with a massive runway to host cargo jumbo like C-5 Galaxy or C-17 Globemaster.

The Naval Base acted as the drydock where the GDI Naval assets such as frigates, destroyers, aircraft carriers, landing ships, repair and logistic ships were docked and repaired or given their overhauls. Girain and Stuka however went to an elevator pad on the surface that took them several dozens feet underground before arriving at a circular lab area with an observatory deck for MONARCH personnel to observe the Titans interact with the Scio of Atlantis that was in the middle of the circular room with various prods and suction cups attached to it.

"Thanks for coming Athena, alright we got the Scion here for you two. We saw how it glow in a sudden when you got close. Maybe it thinks you're some hot Olympian goddess." Rick remarked as he sat by one of the monitor looking at the various scales and charts on the computer screen showing the Scion to be passive and inactive at the moment. But when Stuka came into within 100 meters of the Scion, the monitors began to spike up.

"Alright we're reading something here, looks like we got a spike in activity. Stuka, if you can hear and hopefully accept this. Try to get closer to it, maybe we can pull something out." Prompted by Girain's body language and encouraging gestures, Stuka began to walk closer towards the Scion, noticing the glow of the artifact become brighter and brighter with him coming close to it. As soon as he came up to within arms length of the artifact, he was able to reach up and touch it before suddenly feeling a rush of electrical surge into his suit and body.

Girain gasped seeing this as the Scion began to respond to him, prompting her to move up to intervene in case anything went wrong. In the process however she came to a stop when the lab was basked in a massive holographic representation of the Earth, it appeared to be a simulation showing the Earth through the ages from Pangea before it slowly shifted into the modern configuration of the continents and climate.

Not only that but they saw that there was a location on the map being marked as the location of the second Scion piece. Followed by a scene of Tihoucan presumably, one of the rulers of Atlantis sitting inside what could be a Minoan or Mycenaean palace. He had what appeared to be the second Scion piece in his hands looking into it like he was staring into a mobile device with his lips moving.

"Torment me in dreams, torment me in my waking hours. Our great city fallen aeons ago, I now am but a walking corpse, the great Razgriz of mine, aged and elderly. And yet he struggled to protect these people from the terror of three storms. I pity him, who will die lonely, with neither family nor loved ones to carry on his legacy. I too shall pass to the Oblivion. I can only hope and pray to Gaia and Ouranos that these humans will remember us and preserve our bond to the mighty Titans."

Once the images disappeared after this episode of revelation, Stuka stumbled back, falling into Girain's hands propping him up before he could fall on his back. "Are you alright?" he nodded to her. "Thank you for your assistance. What was that all about?" Stuka asked confusedly as Rick Stanton ran through the analysis of the Scion's behavioral patterns.

"Whatever it was, you guys just saw something of a final will. I think the Scion react only to you guys, it's like it's DNA locked to recognize certain Godzilla types. Based on the binary codes that we were able to decipher, the Scion can apparently transmit messages like emails to another Scion user. The other being it can be used as some sort of device for something, like genetic manipulation and creating custom made species from scratch…"

Rick paused for a moment looking at the records of DNA materials, the myriads of data he knew so far was already incredible. An incredible library of countless known and never before seen species from prehistoric earth.

Some of these were apparently genetic materials of Godzilla spliced with some unknown species DNA resulted in "Razgriz" subspecies of Godzilla. They look identical to normal wild and feral Godzilla but also demonstrate greater intelligence and ability to communicate complex concepts in more complicated manners akin to humans.

"That means we should take it from us the next time we go out?" Girain asked Rick seeing standing by the glass and nodded to her. "Yep. You might want to take it with you. Whatever it's doing it only seem to work with you guys." Rick Stanton suggested to which Girain nodded to him, before helping Stuka to stand up and let him shake himself, cracking his neck and joints. "Well we better follow you the next time, just to make sure you guys have security. Beside we could use some fresh air." Said Shiryu in a more calm tone followed by Chikiryu nodding. "Yep beside who knows what super ancient and creepy booby traps might be there to catch Girain."

Girain groaned out hearing this before dragging Stuka away, "You know what I'm going to let Stuka stay with me for the evening if he has to stay for a couple of days. Let me know when we'll deploy." Said Girain as she dragged Stuka out with her to the elevator and exited the lab leaving the two Rex Units to shrug and left soon after. But for Rick Stanton and the MONARCH personnel working on deciphering the Scion, there was still much works to be done.

[hr]

19:30h, New York, USA

Natla was done with packing for her trip to Greece and was now counting down to the day of her trip to begin with. But one final preparation was in need which was why she went down to an underground hangar area. There lay the tools she needed for her plot, three giant mecha, each one sporting a different coloration over their general metal white albino color.

"Nice toys. Let's hope they're made to last. Unlike our wedding." Natla snarked and smirked at the sight of Winter's mecha units. The first one had an appearance like that of a red conventional bipedal mech unit with a big red "1" painted on its head. It had two massive arm cannons and a chin mounted minigun underneath the cockpit.

The second one appeared to look oddly like a chicken style walker with a spade like head facing forward, it had a green coloration around its narrow and sleek body with the head having four tubes able to fire missiles and torpedoes alike, fitting enough, this mecha appear to have a "caterpillar" propulsion drive system on its shoulders with designs in mind for the legs to fold up.

The third and final one seem like the most conventional one of the bunch, appearing to look more like a futuristic hover tank with two rectangular multi barreled missile launchers on its top side with a cannon that can only aim vertically but trade off for that is the tank's four massive hover engine giving it the ability to quickly skirt around its enemies. These were her weapons, but still there were many questions about how well they would hold up against her enemies.

She then held up her phone and dialed Rabi's number waiting for him to reply. "Rabi? Did you get what I want?" She asked him and waited for his reply. She soon heard Rabi's frantic breathing on the other end of the call. "Hey it's not easy for me to do so alright. It depends on their DNA profile and training. You want tech specs? I give you tech specs now where's daddy smoochie?"

Natla groaned and rolled her eyes when she heard the fake kissing and smooching sound on the phone made by Rabi as she shushed at him over the phone in a strange language that no one can comprehend or understand. "Nakh he rochiles sellas!" Said Natla with a shout and hissy snarl sound that made Rabi stopped and asked her in confusion. "What did you say babe?"; "None of your business you overgrown hairy degenerate ape, now hand me the data or you'll be regressed to a worm." Her snark and aggressive word made the Russian with fake Arab name blurt out. "Alright, alright. Jeez take it easy babe."

With that in mind Rabi began to transmit the data he had on the Rex Unit tech specs, especially their armor suits, material density, weapon performance, etc… Seeing the data coming in, Natla grinned wide and slyly as she watched the data being leaked to her tablet before finally receiving the entirety of the data from Rabi.

"We can put off that punishment for now, you've proven to be a rather useful to me. For the time being, enjoy your lavish life while you can." She hung up on the call with Rabi and began to wire the money she promised into his bank account, $500,000,000 now sat comfortably in his bank account waiting to be spent on anything he wished.

[hr]

Back on the Blacksite, Girain and Stuka were walking back to their shared den when they noticed the Godzilla family were standing outside of it apparently curious at Girain's campfire and the stranger on the island. Stuka seeing this took a step back in caution ready to enter a fight if need be. He noticed that the towering juggernaut was definitely Godzilla with the signature charcoal black scale with red scars and he was looking at him namely.

Next to him was a slightly shorter and much more slender Godzilla with pinkish albino scale with a tinge of slight purple on her dorsal plates. The young teenager Jr was the one led them there as he can be seen standing in front of his father Godzilla pointing at Girain and Stuka. "Uh oh, this looks bad…" Girain mumbled seeing that Godzilla was coming towards her with his formidable juggernaut build as he lurched forward at her and sniffed her face. He however made a hostile growl at Stuka as he glared at him, the alpha predator suspected the stranger, deeming him intruder on his territory.

He tolerated Girain, he tolerated humans, he even tolerated Shiryu and Chikiryu but this stranger made him concerned for his family. Godzilla growled and bared his teeth in a feral fighting pose assuming hostile, Stuka in turn began to lurch forward assuming a combat pose to prepare and defend himself from the King. Girain however quickly pushed Godzilla away gently and put herself in front of Godzilla to prevent him from taking aggressive actions.

"Why are you protecting that thing? It intrudes upon our land and threaten us." Godzilla grumbled towards Girain in his native Godzillian growl and began to sniff her. Girain held up her hand defensively at Godzilla as kept his muzzle in close proximity to her as if to inspect Girain for foreign matters.

He found that beside the musk and scent of the ocean, the earth and jungle, she had nothing else out of the ordinary. "He's with me, and I need to work with him on something so please don't threaten us like that." Girain complained to Godzilla prompting him to take a step back from her and grumble in an annoyed manner seeing that she was defending a stranger in his eyes.

"Girain, what are you hiding from us? Normally you would be in that human place. But you've been hanging out in the den." Godzilla grumbled and gestured his head towards the den entrance of Girain before looking back at her. "Well… I went for a hike up the Andes. Then found something that I don't know how to explain." Stuka then chimed in a sudden to fill in the details for Girain. "Discovery of an unknown tomb of a deceased Godzilla of your species, or subspecies, including a humanoid mummy of unknown origin. A second tomb has been found and we are expected to excavate it soon." Said Stuka causing Godzilla to become visibly shaken and his facial expression become much more terrified or even traumatized.

He collapsed on his back and was propped up by his mate and son as he still seem petrified in terror that he could barely explained. "T...the...the...city...Ghidorah destroyed it." He mumbled incoherently, barely able to make a complete sentence but just cobbled together enough words to suggest his knowledge of Atlantis.

His mate, Gojirin, blunk in confusion as she helped him up to his legs. "I think you need to calm down first dear, what is this city you're talking about?" Gojirin asked him in a demanding and somewhat interrogative manner. "The city… the guardians… we protect, they live… Atlantis…" Godzilla blurted out making Girain and Stuka glanced at each other briefly before looking back at Godzilla seeing him breathing and hyperventilating for a moment.

"You knew Atlantis? You were there?" Girain asked Godzilla prompting him to nod at her blankly. "Yes… I was a feral, the wild one, protecting its colonies. Then it all sunk, it was gone." Said Godzilla as he struggled to hold back his tears, nearly sobbed and croaked. Whatever sound a Godzilla made when depressed was being recorded by Girain and Stuka. "Father, are you alright? Was it that bad back then for us?" Jr asked naively to Godzilla as he struggled to hold back his depression before he shook his head to Jr.

"No… it wasn't… there was more to it but it's dreams and whispers in the winds now son." He looked back at Jr and sighed out as he turned around walking into the jungle of the island, "Let's go son, dearest, I'll explain when I can." Godzilla sighed out as he walked away but Gojirin didn't follow him making him looked back at her anxiously. "I'll stay with Girain for the night, I think I might want to hear her as well." Said Gojirin as he nodded understandingly before leaving with Jr into the jungle of the island while Gojirin followed Girain and Stuka into the den.

There Girain switched the lights up to help Gojirin see the interior of the den, though she had been there before and knew the place and what Girain used it for before, but this time she noticed that in the back of the den there was a large cylindrical pod with cold air hissing out of it.

"Oh and Gojirin, remember that present I promised you a while back?" Girain asked in a friendly tone with Gojirin nodding and smiling at her friend. "I do, you made that promise 5 years ago I think, but I never knew what it will be." Said Gojirin with Girain coming over to the cylindrical pod and opened it, letting the cold air hissed out revealing what appeared to be an MFS Armor suit similar to Girain's robot chassis.

This one however appeared to have navy blue coloration with shiny curvaceous geometrical design to accompany Gojirin's Godzilla body. Seeing this Gojirin let out a gasp in awe alongside that of Stuka as they took a look at the suit, Girain helped take the suit out of the pod and placed it on the ground with the back side of the suit opened up, lifting upward revealing the interior having various electronic components, nuclear sensory network running from head to toe. The limbs were sockets such as tail, arms and legs with protective padding layer allowing Gojirin to step inside and inserted her limbs into their corresponding tubes.

Once she was inside the suit collapsed on her sealing her inside of it, at first she could only see darkness before the emerald green optics flashed up and her HUD booted up allowing her to see where she was and turned her head around, panning the view and looked at Girain and Stuka. "Oh so this must be how you see the world everyday isn't it Girain? This is… eye opening, to know how you live in your armor body." Said Gojirin while Stuka cocked his head to the side observing this development and felt an odd sense of awe and respect towards Girain.

"This is incredibly… groundbreaking Unit Athena. A cybernetic suit for a living Godzilla?" Stuka asked curiously as he reached up to touch and feel Gojirin's chest and gently stroke down to her abdomen blankly. "I detect a Hyper Laser system similar to my chest mounted laser weapon system." He noted while Gojirin blushed slightly under her helm. "He's not aware of what he's doing?" Gojirin asked Girain, sounding rather high pitched as she felt Stuka touching her body. "No he doesn't have awareness of private space." Girain sighed out and gently lifted his hand away from Gojirin and let him sit down next to her. "So yes this is the present I promised you, a little late but a good addition nonetheless."

Gojirin nodded to Girain and hugged her tenderly and purred out rubbing her snout against Girain's face and neck before the MFS-4 mecha unit returned the hug, she too let out a mechanical and synthesized purr at Gojirin before feeling Gojirin kissing her lips passionately with Gojirin's hands reaching down to perform a circular rubbing motion on Girain's hips.

"Oh please Gojirin, not in front of him." Girain giggled before feeling Gojirin's tongue playing with Girain's synthetic tongue and nibbled her neck. "Sorry love, but can't help but return the favor for the nice present. Good night love, you too, uh Stuka isn't it?" with a slight glance over at Stuka, Gojirin gave him a sense of heightened lust and pleasure as he felt his crotch tighten and harden but he refused to show it while maintaining a blank stare at her. "Affirmative, I am R-1001 Stuka, attached to Unit Athena for her assignment. Good night to both of you."

He then stood in place frozen and petrified like a statue but he soon felt Girain gently laid him down on his back with his back being pressed up against Girain's chest and his head was meeting her chin. He felt Girain wrapped her arms around his waist and planted on his abdomen region as she began to enter her sleep mode with him. "Good night Stuka." She yawned gently and began to fall asleep while Stuka, on primal instinct let out a purr of pleasure.


	5. Chapter 5: Philhellenism

Chapter 5: Philhellenism

Aegean Sea

October 31st, 2026

Four days of painstaking research and data collection finally paid off with Girain and Stuka being transported to the Aegean Sea, their departure due to long range travel reason saw them swimming from the Blacksite in the Pacific Ocean towards Hellas. They crossed over the Suez Canal relatively easy using the barge and an escort flotilla to bring them into the Dodecanese Islands where they were left to swim freely.

Four of them, Shiryu, Chikiryu, Girain and Stuka, prowl the Aegean Sea, scaring away dolphins and sharks and other assortment of Marine wildlife while they swam under the surface of the ocean looking for traces of a lost civilization. "Alright according to intel gathered by Sam, we should be coming up on Nisi Gigantes. Island of Giants." Girain briefed them as they surfaced on the isle of Giants beachhead. There are some ruins here that baffled historians and archaeologists for decades and it was no jokes to any of them.

As they wade ashore, the Mecha Titans saw that the island had the ruins of a Minoan-Mycenaean civilization styled settlement. Like a cross of two different cultures, the buildings had white marble stone pillars and columns similar to Classical Greek architect but lack some of the most defining touch of realistic and idealistic proportions and scales of the human body. Instead these seems to have stylistic touches with their less detailed depictions of humans.

While then some other structures were made with Minoan Architecture style in mind using mudbrick, flagstone, tiled roof and other details such as wall decors showing bullfighting by athletic champions of the Minoans mainly from Crete with pools and ponds decorated with various drawings showing dolphins, marine wildlife. "Overlord, this is Athena, we're on the island now, you're seeing this?" the camera stream was fed to Lt. General Grady who was onboard the USS ARGO with Rick and Sam watching them.

"We see them, solving mysteries and rewriting histories for sure. Hard to tell from a camera though, anything to note about sizes?" General Grady asked while watching their streams. "Si senor, from the looks of those, I think they're meant for us to play with." Chikiryu remarked cheekily as she went over to one of the temple's remains to check it out with Shiryu but once that got close they saw that the statues bear the appearance of a Godzilla holding a Greek spear and Aegis shield predating the Hoplon shield.

They flanked the doorway into a now roofless temple with a half broken statue of Godzilla and a king sitting on its laps like the one in Vilcabamba. Chikiryu and Shiryu stopped and blunk a bit seeing this as an odd sense of devotion humans reserve for an otherwise gigantic and destructive savior. "Whoa is that… a temple for the chunky guy? That is actually pretty cool now I want one for me and Rexy." Chiki joked cheekily with Rex grimace at the thought. "I don't think the public would tolerate construction of our own shrines, let alone cult temples." Said Rex.

Girain and Stuka were separate from Shiryu and Chikiryu on another side of the ruins where they inspect a palace ruins with torn down stone walls of a garden that had now overgrown with vines wrapping around pillars and terraces. "These structures seem to date back to the Greek Dark Age, carbon dating suggest somewhere around the 12th Century BC." Stuka observed while zooming in on the Greek ruins and took photos of them using his helmet's optics.

His Orion Sword commanders Joe and Grey watched remotely from their base in Central Asia noted the details of the photos seem to rewrite the history book on civilizations of Greek Dark Ages, further photos forwarded to them showing parts of the city having things like Amphitheater and oddly enough, a massive bronze chair on a hilltop of the island.

"Stuka, any ideas what that monument is?" Grey asked over the comms prompting Stuka to shake his head sideways. "Negative sir, judging by the size it is roughly 100 meters tall, roughly my size but the resource for it must be draining to say the least." Stuka mused as he walked over to the chair with Girain as the two inspected it they found that the bronze had seen better days with signs of rust and tears. "Must have needed massive amount of cleaning constantly. Some of the rust were from raining." Girain knelt down inspecting the chair while Stuka out of curiosity sat on it and began to experience an odd sensational rush of power.

He saw the city in a panoramic view, the palaces, bathhouses, amphitheater, Agora, remains of docks and temples. He was sitting on the throne of a King, a Godzillian King of a Greek civilization from the Bronze Age and possibly into the Greek Dark Ages with signs from other time periods. "The panoramic view is… pleasant. Beautiful. I can see the planning of the city in square grids and linear paved roads." Stuka stated.

Girain being next to Stuka the whole time stood next to him and looked down at the city below and awed at the strangely convenient piece of furniture and how it was placed to give them the feeling of power and authority. "They are his pet." She quoted the late Serizawa, finding his words to be resonating with their present. "The late Serizawa was right regarding the coexistence of Titans and humans, however the question is how?" Stuka remarked curiously while remaining seated and stiff on the throne.

"That there is the billion dollar question." Girain retorted as she then began to take photos of the ruins and Stuka on the throne with her optics, one of the photos showed General Grady that the throne was meant to let them see the bullfighting arena that Minoans were known for. Judging by the placement of the city's buildings, the throne was built first along with the palace and bull fighting arena before the rest of the city was constructed.

"Looks pretty neat, you two are in the VIP seat for all the major events." Grady commented with a smirk while holding a lit cigar to enjoy the fascinating architecture and the two giant mecha being in intimate proximity to one another. "I know you're watching, I hope you enjoy the show Grey." Grey indeed heard Grady's taunt over the coms and made a sly smirk at the playful attitude of General Grady.

"Touche general, touche indeed." Grey remarked under his breath and kept his attention fixed on Girain as she was seen helping Stuka explore the island's architect. But he kept his focus on Girain the most, he took careful mental notes of her body language, behaviors towards Stuka. He saw that Girain's attentiveness towards Stuka, combined with her taking a crouch stance to take photos of him and the throne's various depictions of Mycenaean and Minoan wars and conquests, presumably of Troy.

At the base of the throne, there were Linear A writing by Minoan people but Girain couldn't translate it as the language remained too cryptic for archaeologists despite the ages. She and Stuka noticed however that the area around the throne seems to have a much higher than usual amount of grass and floral life.

He knelt down and zoomed his view in on the flora, noticing that these weren't known types of wild grasses but rather oddly irradiated grasses, much larger and offer greater density in terms of softness. So much so that he began to move his prosthetic leg along the grasses, his talon like toes burrowed in between the blades of grass feeling them rustling. "Pretty much understandable for both you and Shiryu." Said Girain with a sympathetic sigh looking at his curiosity taking hold. "Does this affect my operational capabilities or that of Shiryu?" He asked dully not quite understanding what this all meant to him.

"Don't worry about it Stuka, it doesn't make your aim anymore inaccurate." Said Girain and Stuka cocked his head to the side rather confused before standing up from the throne and continued their patrol/vacation tour. The two of them arrived at what appeared to be a cave entrance by the island's mountain side with various Greek writings on its walls.

These don't appear to the Greek alphabet of Classical Antiquities, rather they appeared to be hieroglyphs and pictograms of Mycenaean Greek age. "The final resting of the Guardian, shall not be disturbed, lest the worthy of Zeus lay claim to his relics." She translated the writing noticing the odd cave entrance having a rather large amount of homes and windows carved into the mountain sides.

"They must have built the new homes after the tomb was done… what happened here?" Stuka mused curiously before activated his helmet's IR headlamp and take point for Girain while Shiryu and Chikiryu set up security around the island and patrol the sea around them. "Overlord, Athena here, we're going subterranean again, might lose contact so get the ground team to establish foothold ASAP."

"Acknowledge Athena, we're dispatching Task Force Zeus of MEDCOM to the island now. Hopefully Shiryu and Chiki can keep corridors safe." Said General Grady over the coms as the troops were being readied on board the LDP San Antonio and its sister ships, they were gearing up with various heavy weapons, entrenching tools, communication relays and radar systems, satellite radio and other equipment before being loaded up on AAVPs and MV-22 Valkyrie VTOLs.

Not far from the GDI's own fleet, Orion Sword flotilla of stealth ships had their own troops geared up for deployment on Grey's order with the troops using stealth VTOL models similar to the MV-22 but much more angular and sleeker, one of these were even armed gunship variants similar to the USAF's AC-130U Spooky Gunship.

The V-44X Kingfish VTOLs took off from the flight decks of Orion Sword stealth frigates and destroyers and carry their contingent of elite operatives towards the Island's northern side and began to disembark troops there while the GDI race to the southern side in a bid to secure the ruins.

"Oh well Rexy looks like there they go again, racing to control their own turfs, setting up a gang war or something. At least you have me to think about should you feel lonely." Chikiryu smirked under her helmet at Shiryu while he groaned and rolled his eyes to her sass. "Seriously I'm right next to you, let's just keep our eyes on the prize and-" He paused for a moment when they swam over a crevice of the Aegean Sea where he spotted what appeared to a massive shedded snake skin.

He dived down to pick up the skin and brought it up to the surface for GDI troops on the island to inspect, by laying it down on the sandy beach they began to notice something odd about it. A body that was long and serpentine roughly 60 meters long and 80 meters wide. Not only that but there seven heads, each with frills and Ghidorah like horns. "Uh… guys I don't think I've watched Hercules enough to remember how did he kill the Hydra." Chikiryu remarked stunted at the sight.

[hr]

While they were busy handling the measurements and DNA tests on the shedded skin, Stuka and Girain were busy moving deeper into the den finding even more ages of Greek history carved into the cavern, she was placing down some chemlights while Stuka looked up at the well carved walls and statues of Olympian deities on either sides. He noticed that each one had a plaque with their names carved on it.

"Command I've encountered an art gallery, these appear to date back to the 6th century B.C judging by their carbon dating." Stuka reported his finding while Mr. Grey and Joe monitored their progress from Orion Sword's central. "We see it, looks like these were built to Titan size. Judging by the carving it must have been carved into the wall instead of being imported elsewhere." Joe mused analytically as he measured the statue's size and composition being rather bare minimum compared to Greek style statues of the time. Most were to be painted like the golden statue of Athena in Athens, but these appeared to be rather simple with the white marble and limestone being carved directly into the wall. But the details were simply exquisite.

One of the statues however caught Girain's eyes as she came over to it, she noticed it was the statue of Athena but the Aegis shield present there appeared to oddly enough display an image of Girain herself. She took a step back seeing this odd imagery on the shield, she noticed that the shield itself was metal instead of limestone. Oddly enough, it didn't appear to be made from bronze and copper like most materials of the time.

Out of curiosity, she took the shield off of the left hand of the Athena statue and inspected it, her palms felt the metallic composition of the shield. It was light enough for her carry but rather dense and hard enough to withstand a direct hit from anything.

What was strange was the image of herself plastered on the shield's surface while at the same time, Girain acquired a sword and scabbard from the statue of Athena to tie around her waist. "Well what do you know, they prepared her props but forgot her her wardrobe." Grey mused at this while Stuka noticed that the sword had an owl figure on the hilt strangely enough, he then looked again at the door behind him, the stone door appeared to have carvings showing the images of Hephaestus, Atlas, Zeus, Damocles and Poseidon.

Each of the Olympians, sans Damocles and Atlas, were depicted with their iconic tool like Poseidon's trident, Zeus's lighting bolt, Hephaestus hammer. While then Atlas was seen holding up the globe like in mythological depictions and Damocles appeared with a sword hanging over his head apparently ready to fall down.

As Stuka inspected the lock on the door, he noticed the lock had an owl head symbol on it and looked back at Girain. He saw that the female MFS unit had an owl painted on her chest panel, could it be a coincidence? No it couldn't have been, it was all apparently well set up, like they were the long awaited guests. He noticed that on the hilt of Girain's sword there was an owl figure, it didn't take him long to connect the dots and gestured for Girain to come over.

"Unit Athena, I think your sword has a purpose here. Take a look." He pointed her to the owl carved on the stone door as she then drew her sword and pushed the blade into the locking, hearing the clicking sound inside of the door, she then twisted the blade around. This unlocked the door which slid open revealing a massive antechamber and two spiraling staircases for them to take. "Good find Stuka, looks like we're onto something here. You see that gate on the other side? It looks like the gate of Tartarus to me." Girain pointed Stuka towards the gate on the other end of the antechamber.

He noticed how the rustling metal gate appeared to have a bar like design akin to most villa gates with the skull motifs alongside the complement of vicious visages of fearsome Cerberus, gatekeeper of the Underworld. On the gate were a set of five locks that require 5 keys to open, and around them were the corridors leading to the 5 different rooms to find the keys. Seeing this Stuka went towards the corridor of Poseidon seeing that the floor right before the door was marked by a symbol of the rolling waves of the sea. He saw a lever next to the door, presumably to control the metal barriers and pulled it. Just as he thought, the barrier retracted revealing to him a corridor with the smell of salt water. "Smell of salt, there might be open water somewhere up ahead." Said Stuka as he traversed the corridor.

He noticed that his optics began to have steam and water droplets build up, obstructing his view causing him to wipe it periodically. Girain being close behind him had to do the same due to water droplets coming down from the ceiling. She glanced up and noticed that the ceiling was apparently leading them out to the sea, with cracks suggesting that water erosion had been chipping away at the structure very slowly. "Let's hope we're done in time, otherwise there might be more problems with getting out than getting the keys." Girain mused with a grimace.

Stuka nodded to her before he dived down to a water filled drainage pool followed by Girain as they began to swim along the the massive tunnel and drainage aqueduct. The two came out to what appeared to be a massive aquarium with a domed structure to keep it contained. The aquarium would no doubt be Poseidon's property with various underwater rocky coves, coral reefs and a multitude of marine wildlife populated the area and yet none of them stand and look at Girain and Stuka. They scurry away just as soon as the two swam over their heads.

But as they swam around exploring the aquarium, Girain noticed that there was a gaping hole on the stone structure of the aquarium's far side showing what appeared to be slithering tracks on the ground. "Hmmmm, we're not alone here Stuka, keep your eyes out." Said Girain in concern as she swam around the aquarium searching for a key with Stuka. "Affirmative Unit Athena, will keep my eyes out for trouble." Stuka replied calmly as he continued to search the sandy seabed for signs of a mystical key.

He soon noticed what appeared to be a valve like handler buried on the seabed and quickly dusted it off revealing some fragments of gold on the handle valve. "Unit Athena, I believe I've found something here, a valve of sorts I believe. It seems to be made of gold and covered by barnacles and corals." Stuka described it in detail while sending live camera feed footages of the valve to Girain so she could follow up on the findings.

She then discovered a second valve on the seabed with similar design and carvings. "Found another one here, I think we're supposed to turn these simultaneously." Girain exclaimed as he inspected the carvings on the handle to find any suggestions on what direction she was meant to turn. She noticed a pair of dolphins one was facing clockwise and the other counter-clockwise with the one facing clockwise having a silver finish while the counter-clockwise was bronze.

"Stuka, you see the dolphin ornates on the valves? I think we're supposed to turn them in the direction of the silver dolphins." hearing her observation, Stuka nodded to her and began to turn the valve in a clockwise direction followed by Girain, in the process they heard loud banging and creaking sound on the seabed as the massive stone hatch twisted around kicking up the sand and scared off the marine wildlife away. The process revealed to them both a massive stone gate with the silhouette of an octopus like Titan, in MONARCH's archive there exist Titanus Scylla but here, before their eyes, speculations of a possible MONARCH's Charybdis or Kraken were about to be confirmed.

"Hey uh Stuka, how well do you fare against giant octopus?" Girain grimaced as they stood back away from the slowly opening stone hatch. With bubbles suggesting air rising out from an abyss below, followed by a quartet of tentacles wriggling out feeling the ground around them and send feedback to the host body.

"I was trained to go for the head all the time." He replied dryly but to Girain it felt adequate enough. "Sounds good enough for me." she gulped thickly as the monster finally emerged, a gigantic cephalopod creature emerged having eight eyes around its round dome like head. The creature's mouth was a gigantic maw with teeth as sharp as buzzsaws, their placements weren't better one bit with the maw being circular the teeth become powerful cutting tools for anything. "I do not want to test their crushing power." Stuka remarked and slipped out his tonfa blades.

"Me neither, I supposed the dentist is calling sick today." She sarcastically remarked before the two swam around the massive cephalopod monster and engage its tentacles. Stuka used his superior speed and agility of a Rex Unit to weave through the water like a hot knife through butter with his tonfa blades. He slashed through the tentacles that were 5 times larger than his body, and did not slow down to avoid being caught. Despite the powerful blow, Charybdis tentacles weren't slashed into bits and pieces, instead they suffered only minor cuts and wounds.

Girain in turn fired off her oral AZC cannon freezing some of the tentacles that were collapsing on her before she was wrapped up in a sticky situation, then she followed up with her railguns shattering the frozen tentacles into bits, this made Charybdis angered at Girain and quickly used its spare tentacle to ensnare her and tied her up before trying to devour her. "Stuka! Help!" Girain cried out as she struggled to break free while her tail was wiggling and struggle to swat the tentacle away.

Stuka heard her cry for help and spotted the tentacle that was strangling her, he gasped out in panic and instinctual rage for once when his dorsal plates flashed up. They light up and pulsing with nuclear energy as his mouth plate opened up revealing his real mouth underneath as he breathed out the Godzillian signature atomic breath attack at the cephalopod's head. His breath attack pierced through its eyes and exited on the other side of the penetration clearly killed the monster since it let go of Girain with blood flowing out of its head and black ink before collapsing down on the pit.

"I noticed you did not utilize your sword and shield there. Was there a problem?" Stuka asked curiously looking at her hip where she had her sword mounted. "Oh well I thought that it wouldn't do well underwater as it would on land." Girain remarked with a sigh as she kept the sword tied to her hip and began to dive down the abyssal lair with Stuka, at the bottom of it they found what appeared to be a trident shaped key sitting on a pedestal. Girain reached down and picked up the key inspecting its ocean blue color and Trident appearance for a moment before returning to the ante chamber with Stuka.

There, they stick the key into its corresponding lock and heard the clanking sound of metal as one of the steel barricades keeping the gate lock retracted. Seeing this, the two knew that they just need to keep up the pace and soon the gates will open up revealing the path inside for them to take. Girain placed down a chemlight on the corridor that led them to the aquarium and turned towards the next corridor, Zeus.

With a lever pull, Stuka and Girain were funneled through a rather expansive corridor but one that Stuka noticed to have been made from metals like bronze, copper, gold and silver. These were worn decor on the walls and ceilings with statues of Zeus holding his thunderbolt. As they approached a challenge chamber, they found a marble statue of Zeus standing on the top of Olympus and under him was a Godzilla wearing a sort of Mycenaean style armor suit. The Godzilla was holding a short sword similar to the one Girain was carrying, the blade was imbued with Zeus's thunder and lighting, striking at what could be the Greek interpretation of Ghidorah as the Lernean Hydra.

"Guess all myths are true, from a certain point of view." Girain remarked and Stuka nodded in agreement to her as they proceeded towards what appeared to be a large open chamber. Oddly enough there were stairs leading down to the massive square grid room in the middle but the floor tiles look like they were platforms. "I have a bad feeling about this." Stuka muttered.

He stepped forward, accidentally hitting a secret button on the floor, one that had a thunderbolt symbol, he grimaced under his helmet knowing that he might have messed up again. Girain and Stuka were soon treated to the sight of a sphere being lowered from the ceiling as it began to zap the floor tiles. The tiles then revealed themselves to be platforms that either sink or rise, with the metal sphere on the ceiling shootout lighting bolts on the raised tiles but leave the lower ones untouched. Then the tiles change position on random making the approach to the otherside of the room much more treacherous.

Stuka and Girain both gulped thickly seeing the challenge presented to them being virtually impossible, they were both able to conduct electricity and one step on the wrong tile at the wrong time can prove fatal. "Tactical observation suggest that it's nearly impossible to break through." Said Stuka but Girain was only slightly fazed by the comment, "Nearly but totally." She emphasized. Then it dawned on her, the statue from before was a hint, a guidance for how to overcome the challenge in front of them.

"Wait I think I have an idea how to get through this now." Said Girain as she drew forth the sword and began to make her way across the room much to Stuka's apprehension, she held the sword high, willing to risk herself to find out the exact solution to the puzzle. Stuka gasped out in fear for the first time when he saw her taking the lead and felt compelled to follow to intervene if she were in danger. He saw that her tail was caught on heightened tile with the sphere shooting out lighting bolts once again. "Unit Athena, look out!" He cried out to her causing Girain to flinch in alarm but instead of actually being shocked by lighting, she saw that the sword was electrified and acting as an electrical conductor.

"Hey… it works after all, stay low and stay on the low tiles just to be safe." Girain gestured to Stuka who then nodded and followed her lead walking on the low tiles, changing his steps almost right away when the tile rise again. Eventually getting through relatively unscathed, now out of danger, they discovered a challenge chamber of sorts with a gold sphere frame on the back of Atlas idol made of gold. There were also various electro spheres to conduct electricity from a source nearby.

"Odd, the globe appears to be removable judging by the struts placement." Stuka mused and observed cautiously at the globe on Atlas's back. "I think we're meant to move it just where to exactly." Girain mused curiously as she approached the idol of Atlas and noticed that the base of the statue had a block that stuck out like a sore thumb.

On instinct she pushed it inward, causing the gold idol of Atlas to move the struts out letting the globe rolled over his back and head to the floor. "This is increasingly bizarre, structurally speaking, this place defies the law of spatial placement." Stuka commented seemingly stunted and awed before he began to push the globe around.

As he did so, he noticed that there was a circular placement in the center of the room for the globe and proceeded to roll it into place, this activated a pedestal that hoisted the globe upward in the middle of the room. But now something odd was bothering him, what does this do? "A globe made of gold, East and West are… wait a second… Stuka those are electrical conductors! The globe made of gold to conduct electricity from Zeus to those!" She pointed up to the top side of the room showing a pair of automaton like gold statues of Athena holding hand cranks ready to wheel up the gate and reveal the key.

"How do we conduct electricity from… Wait… Unit Athena, your sword was able to catch the electricity discharge." Stuka pointed to her sword and Girain nodded to him, drawing her blade and went out to the electro-sphere from earlier to catch its lighting. She held out her sword, standing back from the tiles and waited for the lighting, it struck home right on the blade itself but never went down to the hilt as she quickly directed the lighting bolt at the globe.

The electricity traveled around the equator running East and West before being beamed up towards the golden statues of Athena. The automatons then operated the crank to pull up the gates, giving Stuka the chance he needed to obtain the key of Zeus and got out. "Great job Stuka, looks like we might be able to get through this after all. I wonder if Shiryu and Chikiryu are having it easy up there." Girain sighed out looking up at the ceiling before returning to the ante chamber with Stuka.

But while they were busy solving the puzzles underground, Shiryu and Chikiryu were about to have surprised visitors dropping in as three unknown contacts spotted on the GDI's radar ship began to converge on the island. Traveling at high speed, they appeared to have come from the West and were beaming for the GDI and Orion fleets mooring off the coast. Their trip has just got a lot wilder than they would have liked.


	6. Chapter 6: Operation Flashpoint

Chapter 6: Operation Flashpoint

Three signatures were converging on the Joint Task Force, two surface and one submerged, the submerged veered off from the main group and head out to attack the outer perimeter patrol. The other two were heading full speed towards the island and the GDI fleet protected by Chikiryu.

Shiryu was the first to pick up the odd signature on his sonar with the GDI Virginia-class submarine, the Poseidon, picking up the sonar signature of a massive submersible vessel. "Conn sonar, new contact bearing 182, speed 50 knots. No IFF responses, assume hostile." The sonar operator onboard called out, prompting the captain to order his vessel into battle station. "All hands battle station, I repeat battle station. Load torpedo tube 1 and 4." His crew passed around "Aye captains" and its variants in response as they rushed to battlestation.

Shiryu swam around facing the direction of the sonar contact when suddenly he saw a massive saucer shaped vessel cruising at his direction firing torpedoes at his chest. The torps slammed in and exploded, sending him flying backwards against some underwater mountains. The Poseidon positioned herself facing down the enemy before firing her first torpedoes at the green Lizard Slayer 2 craft. Her Mk48 torps cruised through the water, homing in on the target and made auto adjustments based on magnetic feed backs before detonating on enemy vessel's backside.

Her crew cheered and celebrated their vessel's marksmanship and precision, but was cut short when they saw the enemy vessel was barely dented, not even a scratch as it began to turn around for a second pass.

"Right full rudder!" The captain ordered, prompting the helmsman to turn the rudder right and the Poseidon careened in that corresponding direction. "Poseidon, get out of here and warn the fleet! I'll handle the threat, over and out!"; "Negative son, either we all go home or nobody goes home. Fleet is scrambling but we gotta buy them time even if it kills us." The captain protested to Shiryu sounding rather calm but sternly urgent.

Shiryu thigh holster swung open, giving him instant access to his laser pistol as he swam out to engage the enemy craft, firing his weapon at the enemy Lizard Slayer craft blowing off some chunks of its armor and starboard fin. The Lizard Slayer then fired off a barrage of torpedoes at Shiryu, causing him to perform underwater acrobatic maneuvers to confuse the enemy torpedoes. "Drop countermeasures!" the captain ordered, and the Poseidon deployed her countermeasure devices under water keeping the enemy torpedoes away from Shiryu.

The noisemakers caused the torpedoes magnetic and sonar system to go haywire as two of the 4 torpedoes veered off from Shiryu chasing the noisemakers and detonated harmlessly into the seabed. "Hot damn, you actually kickass, Poseidon can you give me an ammo count?"; "We still have a good six torps ready to go. We also have some TLAMS but they're no good against submersible targets."

"Got it, I'll draw the enemy fire you concentrate on getting those shots count." Shiryu replied before maneuvering himself to a cragged valley under the seabed where the Lizard Slayer shadowed his movements above. It then fired off four torpedoes trying to nail him as fast as possible with Shiryu jugging left and right, weaving through the canyon before breaking upward like an aircraft just as the torpedoes were coming down on him. His movement proved too fast as the torpedoes exploded on the terrain instead, this gave the Poseidon time to return the favor.

She fired her torpedo at the enemy vessel's engine exhaust with the Mk48 being able to find its way towards the target easily, blowing out one of the exhaust ports. The Lizard Slayer attempted to maneuver away from the killzone realizing too late that it was now in the killzone of the Poseidon. But as it was fleeing, Shiryu opened his mouth plates and pulsed his dorsal plates. The cyborg's spine glow his signature blue atomic energy and he fired off the blue atomic breath at the enemy craft's top side. The ray proved powerful enough to put a dent and seriously damaged the vessel's neck to the point of severing the cockpit from the rest of the hull.

"Chiki, come in, I just busted an enemy craft with the Poseidon. Her crew just spent some torps but we got the enemy vessel, you got anything on your end?" He heard static for a moment from his broadcast before receiving Chikiryu's voice's coming through. "Oye pendejo, we're under all out assault here. Whoever those bastardos are, they are seriously well armed! Get your cojones over here and help me now!"

Her Hispanic voice came through to him like a hammer hitting his head when he heard that she was under attack, he flabbergasted and then quickly zipped over to her direction on the East side of the island. "Oh God don't worry I'm coming, reinforcements on the way!" Lizard Slayer 1 and 3 were still in the fight and they were marching on the Joint Task Force position on land and sea.

Out at sea, Lizard Slayer 3 was cruising about firing its cannon and missiles on Chikiryu, some rounds hit her armor directly but did not penetrate while the missiles were swatted down from the sky by Chikiryu's atomic breath. A move she learned from Godzilla himself and his mate Gojirin. She instead returned the favor with her 870 MCS-T shotgun firing high power flechette pellets at the hover tank's armor. Predictably she dealt some damage to the tank, blowing off its armor pieces and but the vehicle remain combat effective.

While they were busy fighting, Lizard Slayer 1 was making its landfall on the island, slipping through the defensive net of both the GDI and Orion Sword and began to wreak havoc on the GDI and Orion troops its pilot caught in his sight. The red chicken walker fired off its missile and cannon shells on the desperate infantrymen, sending them flying to their own demise.

Some of the GDI AT sections bravely held the ground, firing off Javelin ATGMs at the enemy mecha walker, the synchronized assault by the ATGMs did their share of damage, popping off some portions of armor on the Lizard Slayer while then the Orion Sword Anti Tank specialists utilized their feared armor piercing rounds in their Barrett M95 rifles and McMillan TAC-338 Lapua Magnum rounds or their Finnish made Sako TRG rifles.

The synchronized sniper firing by Orion Sword picked off some of the antennas, bolts on the hull and damaged the joints of the walker's legs. Causing the mecha unit to limp around trying to blast up the sniper nests with its massive cannon and missile. Shiryu at that moment emerged from the sea and glide on his belly to the sandy shores of the island, causing the Orion Sword operatives to disperse in panic seeing him coming so suddenly and so close to their position.

"Watch it, Corsair! We're danger close here." One of the Orion Sword trooper warned over the radio, "Shut up and get out of here asshole! You traitors mind raped me!" Shiryu shouted back aggressively causing the Orion Sword operatives to cringe and hobble away with a loud bell ringing in their heads.

The enraged Rex Unit quickly aimed his laser pistol at the cockpit of the Lizard Slayer 1 and opened fire, only to have the enemy dashed aside into the densely wooded area of the island. His shots missed and now he had to circle and prowl the enemy mecha unit, thankfully being a giant meant that stealth and subtlety was off the book with how it knocked down trees just by moving around. Shiryu simply continued his shooting and blew off the Lizard Slayer's missile racks leaving it with the cannon to use.

The Lizard Slayer pilot then suddenly slammed into Shiryu's chest and fired his shot blowing the Rex Unit rolling backwards, knocking down more of the island's forest and sliding to a screeching halt towards the ruins. In his wake was a massive trench that the Lizard Slayer set up by planting its legs down on either side of the trench, its cannon was now aiming at Shiryu's chest ready to fire again despite him suffering only minor shock dents.

However as it was charging up ready to fire a vain shot, one of Orion Sword's stealth USS Freedom LCS-Frigate mooring off the coast unveiled a forward facing pod, from which a black and red laser turret was revealed. The weapon charged up its shot and calibrated trajectory while aiming at the enemy mecha unit that was facing down Shiryu. Guided by Orion spotters and JTAC operators on shore, they fired off a high energy laser shot at Lizard Slayer 1.

The shot ripped through the hull of Lizard Slayer 1 and left the mecha nothing but a burning husk as it collapsed to the ground and exploded into a flaming wreck. "Good hit Skadi. Good hit, I see a lot of secondary from here." Said one of the Orion JTACs while Shiryu stood up and shook the dirt and debris off of him. "Yeah… good shot, target confirmed kill." Said Shiryu with a shudder as he looked away from the flame towards where Chikiryu was.

He saw that despite being able to deal some damages to the third LS, Chikiryu was apparently playing with her prey like a sadistic cat. Assisting her was the whole GDI's Fleet Naval and Air assets with their carrier borne F-35s and F-18s taking off and fired off their guided weapons on the enemy giant hover tank. Other GDI vessels like the Arleigh Burke-class Destroyers and Ticonderoga-class missile cruisers firing off their Harpoon ASMs from miles away and streak towards the Lizard Slayer's hull from multiple angles, the missiles slammed into the hover tank's sides and damaged its hover engines, leaving the vehicle dead in the water.

This gave Chikiryu the moment to stomp on its top and aim down its cockpit at point blank range, she can see the little human pilot squirming and squealing inside begging to be spared, only to be blasted into oblivion by her flechette pellets. She reloaded her pump action Remington 870 MCS-T, and fired another shot at the hover tank and another blowing its hull apart until the vehicle was nothing but slags and wrecked portions falling off.

Shiryu shuddered at the sight of Chikiryu's aggressive tendencies and felt a reminder that she was the dominant one in their relationship. So too the Orion Sword operators who either shrugged at the mildest and visibly disturbed at worst. "This is Overlord, give me a SitRep over." General Grady chimed in on the line having watched everything from his command post onboard the USS ARGO.

"Shiryu, here, all clear so far, we took some casualties on land but hostile forces are neutralized. Losses are being counted."; "Santa Muerte here, the bastardo got their asses whop but where did they get these things? They dented Rexy and my armor!" Chikiryu grumbled aggressively on the coms network making the Orion Sword operators cringed and shuddered while General Grady didn't seem at all fazed by her comments. "I hear you Santa Muerte, over. Set up security, make sure nothing else kick our asses."

Lenox himself back in his base with Joe were watching with growing concerns however. Knowing that if the enemies somehow obtained vehicles and mecha units that can damage and dent a Rex Unit in combat as have been shown, it is only a matter of time before scratches and dents become fatal wounds or fatalities.

"Overlord, have Corsair and Senorita Santa Muerte gather up pieces and salvage those remains. I think our Orion Sword specialists can figure out their origin." Grey suggested to Grady over the coms watching intensely with Joe as the two squinted their eyes watching as the two Rex Units on the surface were busy pulling together the burning husks of the Lizard Slayers by the edge of the ruins allowing Orion Sword to inspect the remains while the GDI were busy gathering their dead and wounded to make a headcount of how many were lost. So far, they counted 25 wounded, another 10 were dead, more to come.

[hr]

Deep down in the dark caverns underground Stuka and Girain felt the battle waged over their head and were cautious at moving any further until told otherwise. So far they had secured all the keys and unlocked the gate. But were cautious not to move any further along until they had a report from the surface.

Girain left behind some chemlights on the ground marking the routes they have explored already and with Stuka dialing the radio channels, hearing various static laced sounds while struggling to call anyone on the line, until Mr. Grey's voice penetrated the static and converse with them. "Athena, Stuka, we just sustained an enemy assault on the Task Force's position. From the looks of it, it's probably Jonah and his crew again. This time they got three, I repeat, three mecha units that can take on Corsair and Santa Muerte. We got 'em though, just don't celebrate just yet, it ain't over till the Fat Lady sings."

Hearing this both Girain and Stuka gasped in shock and and rumbled in anxiousness as Girain was the first to ask her question. "What about Shiryu? Is he alright? What's the extent of the damage?" She asked him with an audibly concerned and urgent voice. "Dent armor, slightly scratched but still operational. Overall I'd say he's still pretty functional but I doubt this is the end of it."

"Sir, if Unit Corsair and Santa Muerte can be damaged or at least dented by these hostiles, we may have to deploy the others to give us additional back up." Stuka asked concernedly but in the process accidentally disturbed Girain even more and perhaps frightened her more than the monster they've slain and the booby traps they've waded through so far. "Affirmative Stuka. I hear you. Although I might have to do some cleaning soon around the premises, I smell a rat." Said Grey with Stuka nodding in agreement, "Affirmative sir, we'll continue the operation from here. We'll keep you posted." Said Stuka before he then looked at the opened gate and took point for Girain.

"I should have known that there would be more of you guys lying around." Girain remarked sarcastically with a sigh as she walked behind Stuka. "We were developed simultaneously, ten Rex Units equally divided into two Fireteams. Command structure is WIP." He remarked dully to her before the two reached a massive chasm with what appeared to be yellow bioluminescent plant life in the coral reefs below. This suggested that they may have wandered to a Hollow Earth entry point or in close proximity to one.

Stuka glanced over his shoulder at Girain, seeing that she was keeping her sword in its scabbard and her shield hung on her back. "Are you ready?" He asked to which she nodded to him. "Affirmative, let's get this done." The two would then wade into the underwater chasm before submerging themselves underwater and swam into what appeared to be a cistern and underground water canal system.

All of the structure were made of stone with hieroglyphic carvings and depictions of the Godzillian fighting Ghidorah in the forms of the Hydra with the Godzillian in question apparently wore some types of armor suit with sword and shield in hand harnessing the thunder and lighting of Ghidorah and threw it back at him. "Rick, Sam, you guys see this?" Girain asked as she swam slowly allowing the two MONARCH specialists to observe the finding. "Yeah we're seeing it, and believing it, aren't we?" Stanton remarked sarcastically before whistled when he saw one depiction showing Atlantis in its golden age.

"Sam, just how feasible is the structural design of Atlantis? Is it possible to replicate it now?" Rick asked nervously as his teeth began to gnash upon each other uncontrollably as Girain and Stuka swam further down the cistern. "If we have Venetian architects, then yes." Coleman quipped prompting Stanton to chuckle lightly along. But the most interesting thing he noticed was how the shape of the aqueduct was designed in a Hexagonal shape with the dimension being for a full grown Godzilla to swim through.

Further down were various corals and bioluminescent plant life that glow and illuminate the path ahead organically for them while Stuka slowed down to observe the strange prehistoric plant life grown and took up residents with so little light. Some of the marine life there, scarce in number were apparently bioluminescent as well. His presence also help light up the place even more with his dorsal plates pulsing with nuclear energy, flashing blue and shine his way forward for Girain to follow. "Unit Athena, I think we are close to the hypothetical tomb, there are natural lights above us." He pointed upward and gestured for her to surface with him.

As they surfaced however, they saw that the place was like the tomb in Vilcabamba had a massive entryway for them. A double door made from bronze possibly dating back to the bronze age stood firm before them flanked by two enormous centaur statues. Oddly enough, Girain spotted what appeared to be a snake scale on the wet stone ground. She picked the scale up to scan, her HUD ran diagnostics and preliminary forensic testing with laser scans. That was when her data entries kicked in showing a 45% match to Ghidorah. She blunk in concern and dropped the scale from her hand in fear as she walked with Stuka.

"Is the snake scale concerning you?" Stuka asked her bluntly. "Yes," She nodded and began. "It was 45% match with Ghidorah based on MONARCH archive entry." Her reply left Stuka with some apprehension in mind as he nodded to her before pushing the doors open and walked into the tomb with her. "I'll watch our backs. We may have to leave soon." He knelt down by the ante chamber of the tomb and trained his G36KT on the doorway in case something or someone to come at them. His additional weapon was a shoulder autocannon that quickly flipped on with its double barrels scanning for targets.

Girain nodded to him and went further into the tomb where she found the Godzillian remains, a heavily decomposed and bare bone corpse lying inside a heavily ornate crypt made of stone, it appeared that the Godzillian made his own proverbial bed before lying in it. Girain found that beside the worn Hoplite armor and heavily disheveled helmet that seen battle scars, this Godzilla was a warrior judging by the scar on his left eye.

On the wall, however, was the real treasure, Girain took a look at the wall painting and saw depictions of a city with towering structures and pyramids standing on hilltops overlooking a massive harbor and drydock where massive fleets were constructed. Around it were three Godzillas standing as noble guardians. Its people flourish in imagery depicting them spreading far and wide to distant lands. Then came the cataclysm, a disaster from the sky, fire rain down on the city with a massive meteorite crashing into the city, from that same meteorite came the three heads of Ghidorah.

"Is anybody seeing this? It's our history, and we call these myths." Girain stated astonished by the wall painting and proceeded to take photos of each and everyone of them, forwarding them to Stuka and Overlord on the USS ARGO before looking at the crypt's resident. The Godzillian was apparently clutching at something, another piece of the Scion, similar to the one she and Stuka already found in Peru.

The albino cyborg picked the Scion fragment up and handed it to Stuka who then inspected it carefully, seeing the glow it had and he knew that it had something to do with the piece they were carrying. His left thigh compartment flipped open revealing the first Scion piece and picked it up. As he hovered the two pieces over one another, he saw them collapsed on to each other with electric sparks flying out of the fusion of the two pieces.

The fusion of the pieces caused the Scion to send them into a spiraling vision, same as before but this time they saw with better clarity than the last, they saw the slender visage of a woman on top of a pyramid. Her wrists were chained up along with her ankles, suspended with the Qualopec and Tihoucan standing in front of her spouting off accusations and outrage. "For what you've done, you will be condemned to exile and entombed in ice for eternity!" Tihoucan shouted before what appeared to be a pod sealed up the prisoner inside. The vision was soon gone leaving them to contemplate and piece it together by themselves.

"You saw that Stuka? Did you make out anything of that prisoner they were punishing?" Girain asked Stuka confused and shook her head trying to throw off feelings of suspicion. "Negative, force fed imagery was over too soon. I could not make out the details." He replied blankly. The two would then exited the tomb to find their way back up to the surface, however, as they went out of the crypt's entrance, Girain noticed the water rippled.

She could tell that someone or something else beside them was prowling nearby but not sure what. As she and Stuka waded into the water and began to swim away, she noticed that current around them apparently had a divergent from when they first entered the area. "Stuka, I don't think that hole was there when we first came in." Girain noted, pointing him to the odd gaping hole on the wall with rough circular edges around it. "I hear you. This wasn't around when we originally traverse through. My sonar picked up something large prowling the area. Possible predator in the region."

His words were proven portent when Girain's own sonar picked up the very same signature. The creature prowled the water, seemingly gigantic but instead of having a single head, her sonar and his picked up its multiple heads, seven of them in fact. Seeing this alone was enough to alert Girain and Stuka to get out of the area faster, Stuka slipped out of the massive hole first followed by Girain. But as they left crypt, the hunter soon revealed itself to them and it was a sight to behold; with seven serpentine heads, scales black as night under the sea floor and eyes red as glowing crimson gems, the Hydra lurched forward with its forearms trying to snap at Girain.

She flinched and swam away from it with Stuka breaking off trying to distract the Hydra, he opened his mouth plate and fired off a blue atomic ray at the Hydra's chest. His shot was unfortunately dodged by the serpentine creature that avoided his attack by swimming upward and weaved its heads out to confuse his aiming. Girain quickly fired her Absolute Zero Cannon at the beast, hitting it in the chest and made pushed it aside before it can pounce on Stuka.

"Thanks for the help, let me try popping off its heads." Stuka remarked before switching his shoulder mounted autocannon on and synchronized his targeting software with the cannon. With 3 heads chosen, he opened fire on the Hydra with the bullets traveling at lower velocity underwater and slammed into the Hydra's faces, blowing off bits and portions of its flesh. "Targets confirmed hit, stand by for BDA." He stated blankly only to see the Hydra's damaged heads lurching at him ferociously.

They snapped and bite, some of the head managed to catch him by his prosthetic legs and right wrist, he saw them being too close for comfort, and opted to fire off his atomic breath, blowing back the Hydra and destroyed 4 of the heads. But much to his horror, the monster did not waver after being blown back, it instead wiggle with the long serpentine necks began to flail around having flesh cocoons developed on its charred wounds. Like Ghidorah, the heads began to regenerate but instead of precisely one per neck, they split and multiply like the old saying "One head cut off, two more shall its place".

Even Lenox and Joe were stunted by the development, the mutation and literal mythical characteristics were too obvious to ignore, seeing a bad engagement, Lenox grabbed hold of the headset built into his helmet and chimed in on Stuka and Girain. "Athena, Stuka, get out of there, you can't handle that thing on your own!"; "No need to ask twice, just get us some support! Any support!" Girain replied before grabbing Stuka by his arm and pulled him along, wading ashore to the island with the Hydra hot on their tails.

"What the hell is that?" One of the GDI servicemen exclaimed incredulously seeing the massive wyrm monster wading ashore, "I don't know but I don't like to find out! We ain't Hercules!" A nearby Orion Sword operative replied as they began to once again scramble for cover trying to get away from the Hydra as it breath out noxious fumes from its mouth causing the nearby forest to wither and die.

Seeing this, the GDI and Orion Sword troops quickly scrambled to get their NBC suits and gas masks on, "Gas gas gas! We're being gassed by a fucking Hydra!" a GDI Engineer shouted over the coms as he put on his gas mask and NBC insulation suits. The Orion Sword troops had the NBC protection on by default thanks to their high tech combat suits being made from scratch to be insulation suit with a standard issued vest over it. Their ballistic face masks simply drew forth and insulated their faces with easy to put on breathing apparatuses.

"Oh dios mios, what the hell is that puto!?" Chikiryu gasped in shock seeing the towering serpent was that slithering towards her and Shiryu and was prompted to use her shotgun on the monster's face. Her shots pierced the hides of the serpent's heads, blowing bits and chunks of flesh along with some teeth.

But the monster did not relent, it continued slithering, now zig zagging left and right to dodge her shot and once she ran out of pellets and it was lunging at her in close range. "Aww hell no, get away from her!" Shiryu slammed into the side of the Hydra, pushing it away from her only to have its tail wrapping him up in its coils.

"Shiryu!" Girain gasped out in shock seeing her surrogate brother being harmed, she quickly draw her sword and ran towards the monster, instead of slashing it, she shield bashed the Hydra's heads stunning it immediately. Upon landing and causing a minor quake, she then impaled the beast's heart with the electrified blade electrocuting the Hydra before it tail slapped her across her face.

"Athena, I need your shield support." Stuka stated as he unsheathed his tonfa blades and made a sprint across the sandy beach. Seeing him coming Girain nodded and crouch down with her shield held up as a platform for him to step on. He hopped into the air using her shield as a platform and crossed his arms before his chest. His tonfas now became razor sharp wings as he collapse on the Hydra, tearing apart its heads in one fell swoop.

"Now! Focus fire on the Hydra's necks!" Girain ordered everyone to pour everything they had, which they did, opening fire with incendiary, napalm and high explosive rounds on the Hydra's exposed necks. The flame cauterized the wounds preventing the serpent from regenerating its heads, but it remained active and possibly alive. Seeing this, Girain started to realize something from mythologies, the Hydra was killed Herakles using a massive boulder crushing its every fibers to the point of mush. She needed something to crush it, or at least to evaporate it from existence.

That was when she looked at her sword, still crackling with thunderbolts and electricity, she saw that the Hydra was slithering and flailing aimlessly around trying to have its heads regenerated desperately. "I have to end this. Once and for all." She panted out before running straight towards it with her sword still tight in hand. The albino cyborg slammed the blade's tip right into its heart and drove the length of the sword penetrating the serpent's hides and buried deep inside its body's organs. The blade crackled electricity tearing apart the heart and organs of the Hydra leaving it to flail and screech in dead silence. The heads twitch around along with the body before finally falling down dead from being electrocuted and overloaded in the process.

The trio of Rex Units who watched this were awed and stunted by what had transpired, they had no frame of reference to relate to or describe what went down, only camera footage and recorded audio transcripts can tell the tale for them. "Looks like you got that sonuvabitch, nice job Athena, I got some RTBs ready for you guys. Get to the beach and we'll take you to Athens, you guys just earn that vacation." General Grady spoke over the coms with Girain nodding to his words exhaustively while she arched her head to the sky, "Affirmative on that Overlord. Heh, you actually picked Athens for me?" She asked sarcastically, "I can neither confirm nor deny it." He remarked dryly, prompting her to laugh back gently with a low rumble. "Thanks anyway, we'll be there."


	7. Chapter 7: Erotica & Philosophy

Chapter 7: Erotica and Philosophy

Athens, Greece

November 1st, 2026; 11:30 AM

Her honeymoon had gone perfectly so far, breakfast with fine Greek bread dipped with honey, walk around Athens port of Piraeus and the Akropolis all morning, now she was resting by the hillside of the Parthenon's ruins and looking down on the city. The sun shone on her skin making her out to be a rather oddly tanned woman with the complex being nowhere like what normal people would recognize. Rather it was unusually tanned and dark, almost as if she came from a different time period with different climate.

Her husband Mr. Winter was still busy taking photos around the Parthenon she took her time to look around for sight seeing on her own. She walked down some stairways to a blind man sitting by some marble stone ruins of ancient column pillars.

He had a rather thick bushy beard running down his chest which was light grey, while his clothing, torn and ragged speaks of poverty stricken as his baggy pair of khaki had holes and cuts in it. He wore a pair of dark shades for the blind with a metal walking cane to help plot his way around. His empty coffee mug was half full with some Euro banknotes and dollar bills with some spare changes.

"Zeus still kept you punished, Phineas?" She asked and sat down by the torn off the top of a pillar. "Aye, the Gods can be wise but also cruel and wicked. You heard the news?" He asked to which she frowned and nodded. "I did, you were supposed to beat them, paving the way and steal the Scion." She replied coldly with an annoyed tone in her voice.

"And failed, we had toys yes, but we're not meant to fight gods. It was a suicide mission and I lost three good men doing your bidding."; "Three of yours, not mine." She snidely remarked with toxic coming out of her every words and hisses. "Your inability to terminate those Rex Units endanger me, they'll trace those remains to New York and my financial well being is finished, so will yours." She huffed out with the "Beggar" tapped his cane on the ground slightly before remarking.

"You want a soldier? You got one. If you want luck, coinage can't buy it. No nation on Earth today is yours to call home to begin with." Said the "Beggar" as he stood up and began to walk away from sight. "You want a life of adventure, don't you? Off that husband of yours, it's easier to disappear now than later." Said the beggar in a thick British accent as he scoffed at her and walked away from sight before she finally left the scene heading back to her husband Winter.

"Hey babe where were you? Did you see anything cool around the Akropolis? Or did you see anything cool right now in front of your eyes?" Winters teased her and held her hand in his tenderly, she chuckled heartily before kissing his cheek. "Oh darling I think I see more than just gods today."

Miles away from the bustling city center and its port, Girain found a place for herself to relax, sitting by the rocky coast of Attica looking at the city of Athena, and her namesake, she sighed and swooned at its sight and ancient beauty. A charm that modernity simply could not have taken away even with the passage of time. She was pressing her back up against the rocky cove where Aegeus threw himself into the water.

Her abdomen being partially submerged in the Aegean Sea water with the metal plates reflecting the water surface and the sunlight giving her a more shiny and polished look as if she was bathing in her own private bath. Stuka remained ever closer to her, swimming around in circles, occasionally breaking the monotonous routine by making a graceful dive and leap like a dolphin.

"You seem to enjoy the outdoor Unit Athena? Is there a purpose to this method of yours? Regulations from our respective organizations suggest we should stay in door for maintenance." Stuka asked as he swam over to Girain's side and let himself floated naturally next to her, she soon paid attention to his question and stroked him on his back with her fingers reaching between his dorsal plates in slow and gentle strokes. "Yes, there is." She replied tersely but gently.

Stuka felt the sudden tingling of pleasure by her hand gestures started to feel weak and wobble. He began to lean over and slowly pressed his head against her chest feeling her fingers rubbing and stroking his backside. On instinct he began to purr like a cat and slowly let her work her magic on him while contently let himself be soft and vulnerable. The navy blue Rex Unit pressed his still covered face up against her chest and let her rub some more feeling the odd sensation that was truly an enjoyable bliss he never felt before.

"W-what is this… vibration? Why am I feeling… comfortable? Why is it so… relaxing?" Stuka asked confused while panting and breathing out in slow steady pace as he slowly wrapped his arms around Girain's waistlines and cuddled up to her on instinct, he felt oddly calm and at peace. "That's the idea of it. Relax and comfortable. I get stiff in my hangar if I stay too long, so this is to help stretch and relax your muscles."

Hearing this Stuka began to purr out louder like a cat, he struggled to hold on to his professional composure while letting Girain stroke his back before looking up at her face. Their optics and visors met, facing directly into each other while slowly raise his head up to her level. "Do Unit Corsair and Santa Muerte practice these relaxing methods like you are doing to me?" He asked Girain sounding barely professional at all as Girain let out a soft giggle at him. "Yeah they do, I taught Shiryu how, since he was the first Rex Unit with the same personality as you." She stated bluntly and casually, devoid of any monotonous robotic voice that one would associate with a sentient giant mech.

As Stuka and Girain were laying there looking at the city of Athens under the high noon sun they can't help but picture themselves in the same place but different time. Girain would project a diegetic overlay simulating ancient Athens in its golden age. She would see a towering golden giant statue of Athena standing proudly overlooking the city from the Akropolis. Stuka could not help but drew comparison of his own, viewing the many tankers moving in and out of Piraeus today like Trireme and Bireme Greek warships of old.

"You seem to have a fondness towards classical antiquities. Is there a reason for you to take interest in mythologies? Orion Sword often find it illogical for us to have interests in those." He asked her curiously, to which she sighed out swoon by the sight of Hellas numerous hills and beauties. "Myths aren't always logics and reasons, they're stories meant to inspire its listeners. They're the building blocks of a people's culture and sense of identity."

Hearing her words being like a woman under the trance of Eros, Stuka could not help but glanced over his shoulder to face her thinking that he might be on to something for the first time since they met. "To inspire? To be… unique and find interpretations outside the box." He remarked sheepishly but feeling a sense of revelation rushing through his dull head, to his relief he saw her nodding.

"Yes indeed. I don't know why they chose Corsair or Stuka as Rex Unit codenames, I guess Mr. Grey likes aviation. I can get why I was given the name Athena, wise and kind, brave and just, a warrior full grown upon birth and debut." She mused while planting her chin on the palms of her hands and Stuka cocked his head to the side curious. "Orion Sword noted your independency and cunning before. You have yet to cease to amaze them, including me." He uttered to her calmly lapsing back to his robot voice from before.

"Really now? I'm that intriguing to them?" She retorted rhetorically to Stuka but it came off as more like a half hearted attempt at humbleness and humility. Girain then stood up slowly, mindful not to cause a wave or earthquake to the nearby population centers. "Come on, I think we should be back to the JEOC* by now." (Author's note: Joint Expeditionary Operation Center)

Stuka whimpered and sighed out feeling rather disappointed by the fact that his rare time relaxing outdoor came to an end too soon. He seems reluctant to follow her for once even when she had taken ten steps away from him, nonetheless he followed her regardless out of obedience to his programming. The two would make their way from Aegeus Cove to the nearby Naval Base of the Greek Navy near Piraeus. This one however had a hangar built into the mountainous coast created for stationing of Mecha Units like Girain or a Rex Unit.

He saw the massive facility inside had room for a total of 5 mecha units with a large common room in the middle of the hangar for the mecha units to sit, interact with humans or lust lie down. Chikiryu and Shiryu were present there, plugged into the base's mainframe network to copy and paste their blackbox recordings and data of the operation.

"I take it that you only turn in your blackbox to approved Orion Sword bases or contacts right?" Shiryu asked begrudgingly towards Stuka and saw the rival Rex Unit nodded to him. "Affirmative Unit Corsair, for the sake of data encryption integrity." Stuka remarked robotically using the factory default codename of Shiryu causing the first Rex Unit in existence to growl in anger. It was no secrets that it was his personal berserk button, the moniker given to him by what was best a traitor who had replaced him with another Rex Unit.

"Shiryu, pipe down already pendejo! You're scaring big sis's boyfriend. So how was your date? Did you guys kiss yet? Any plans for kids and families in the future?" Chikiryu asked teasingly towards Girain seeing the taller and more beefy cyborg shrugged and cringed in nervous thoughts, Girain angrily retaliated with a retort, "Well how about you and Shiryu? Any luck with your own love life yet?" Chikiryu rolled her eyes hearing this and only shrugged lightly at Girain. "Gotta say big girl, Rexy here is dull as a brick but I think I'm chipping away at him, his heart is all mine for the taking." She giggled playfully seeing Shiryu shuddered hearing her mentioning the chipping of his heart.

"She is chipping Corsair's heart with a chisel?" Stuka asked dumbfoundedly apparently understanding it literally. Causing Girain to burst into a slight chuckle of amusement before replying to him. "No Stuka it's figurative speaking, metaphor for winning someone over and fall in love with them." Stuka cocked his head aside thinking about the meaning of the phrase. "Then by that logic, am I... chipping away at your heart... Unit Athena?" he asked stuttering nervously to Girain hoping that she would offer him an answer that seem rational.

He however only hear Chikiryu burst out laughing loud and hard at his question while Shiryu groaned as he stepped out of the paddock and rubbed his head groaning. "Please Chiki stop it, they're embarrassed enough already." He could only hear Chikiryu giggling even further as she came to Stuka in long strides to show off her thighs and lean in on him seductively.

"Does this view please you Orion boy? I think deep down you're wondering if you can get under my armor. Or my big thicc sis there." Chikiryu teased him seductively with her armored chest being so close to his view that he could only look directly down her body length. Shiryu was fed up with the showing off and quickly grabbed Chikiryu from behind and dragged her away from Stuka, "That's it Chiki! If you want some attention you got me!" Shiryu growled assertively to her.

She however laughed back at him and pushed him down on his back, before spreading her legs out and kneeling down on top of him and looking down at him teasingly as if she had breasts to show off. "Awwww what's the matter Rexy, wanna have a love triangle? Well that's too bad, because you just cut my fun short." She hissed back at him causing Stuka to shudder in fear seeing Chikiryu's dominant nature and her sexual appetite towards male Rex Units.

"Uhhh don't worry Stuka, you know I won't do that to you." Girain assured him as she wrapped her hands around him, prompting him to return the favor for her without hesitation and buried his face into her chest feeling the warmth of her artificial muscles radiating into him and his own organic radioactive warmth into her. "Haaa! I knew it that he was gonna do that! Ya see that Rexy? They're hugging and cuddling, it's love I tell ya, I knew it I'm the matchmaker saint!" She exclaimed eagerly to Shiryu while humping up and down on him causing him pain and panic. "Chiki! Stop it they're looking at us! I'm not ready to be on YouTube yet!"

The begging by Shiryu only ceased when Chikiryu got off of him chuckling and strutting away making sure that he can see her rumps in full view as she shook them side to side. She then spank Stuka's rumps and smirked under her helmet when he whimpered and moaned in surprise, "By the way you two, boss men Stanton and Coleman wanna see y'all. Something about that Scion thing we found." Girain nodded to Chiki as she and Stuka walked along the narrower corridors and hallways of the Hellenic Naval Base towards a research chamber where the Scion of Atlantis was stored.

There the Scion was placed in the middle of the room with various electrical prods attached to it to monitor the electrical currents and patterns it displayed. They noticed that when humans are around, there was nothing unusual. But once Girain and Stuka came in the readings spiked off the charts showing strong resonant and reactions when Girain and Stuka came closer to it. The Scion slowly lifted up and levitated in mid air apparently all by itself and radiate crackling electricity as it sensed Girain and Stuka close to it.

"Hey guys, hope you uh, don't mind us watching what happened in the hangar… it was weird, but that's what happened when Chiki is around." Coleman nervously chimed in on Girain and Stuka's coms as the two didn't seem to mind much. "I know, I was a bit worried for Stuka's sake since I know he isn't exactly the type to be accustomed to the whole thing with her." Said Girain with a cringed mental expression while Stanton was more nonchalant and sarcastic deadpan in comparison. "I'm more worried that you two might conceive a child together. Cute but also worrying." Stanton remarked causing both of them to cringe at the same time.

"Alright we're picking up the same energy pattern again. Looks like it's DNA encoded to you guys that's for sure. Curious case. The last time it did that the Scion was conducting a data dump." Coleman noted and mused curiously seeing the Scion of Atlantis electrical discharges corresponded to the rise in data inside of Girain and Stuka. Girain's hard drive was seeing a spike in space being used as more gigabytes worth of digital data being forcefully transmitted into her giving her what could best be described as a headache.

Stuka too groaned in pain and ache as he felt his Rex Unit armor suit was having a hard time processing the enormous amount of knowledge of the Atlantean artifact. "Don't worry we got you cover this time, initiate data dump procedure!" Rick called out on the P.A system prompting the humans ground crew to quickly grab the nearby chords and reel them over to Girain and Stuka, they aimed for the neural outlet port on the back of their necks and lodged the cords into place. Once in, they had the nearly endless amount of data being downloaded into their mainframe, lighting the proverbial load for the two.

"Ugh… it hurts, my head hurts. Interrogative, what kind of data are we looking at, Mr. Coleman?" Stuka asked groaning as he sat down on the floor with his back against the wall to have himself propped up. "Well from what we found here, it looks like a series of floor plan and architect scheme, layouts of Atlantis. Looks like there are plans for colonies beyond the main continent as well. There's a whole map of them, around the late Mesozoic Age. We'll cross reference maps of the Earth to see if we can find any remaining colonies and the exact modern coordinates of Atlantis."

Stanton whistled in awe as he helped deciphered the various data dumps from Girain and Stuka, he found what could be a windfall of data and treasure trove of information. Revelations of the key to coexistence that would have left Serizawa stunted with his mouth gaping, here Stanton was doing that for the late doctor. "Stuka, Athena, you guys may want to look at this…" He paused mid sentence as he then forwarded his findings to Girain and Stuka's HUDs showing them what appeared to be an Atlantean genetic experiment.

Hieroglyphics and pictograms of the Atlanteans written with various depictions of a Godzilla showing the King of the Monsters holding what appeared to be a shield and spear in both hands, standing at focal point and roared over the other Titans of Earth like a warrior King. The other depictions showing the Atlanteans were living with Godzilla with the King depicted as a towering figure over the city with his shadow casted over the crowds of humanoid Atlantean populace.

"They put the God in Godzilla before we do." Said Girain with a slight giggle of humor before she attempted to read the hieroglyphics with Stuka help. As they read through the texts, they began to understand what these meant almost like giant archaeologists reading through parchments of uncovered ancient scriptures and texts. "It looks like they were working on creating an Alpha Godzilla, more intelligent than the feral one we know." Stuka noted.

"Stuka… I think they were trying to make a Godzilla as intelligent as humans, something that can work as a mediator between the two." Girain squinted her eyes showing Stuka what she was able to compile together, the roughly translated version along with depictions of Godzilla and the DNA helix with various slightly corrupted and unclear depictions showing the DNA gaps made in purpose could be filled in with by something new, custom DNA and genetic materials.

"How are they doing that? The DNA materials must have come from somewhere. This simply defies all sense of scientific conventions." Sam asked rhetorically and scratched his head completely dumbfounded by the revelation and information, Stanton himself scratched his chin being more interested and curious about the genetic manipulation of the Godzilla by an ancient primordial civilization. "More importantly, what were they trying to make? Or who in their rank was working on these?" Girain asked curiously and stroke her metal chin reading the parchments and incomplete texts. She could tell from the incomplete writing and the manner of how the Scion pieces were found and fused together, some of the information was redacted.

"That reminds me something, how is Mr. Grey Stuka? Or am I not clear for disclosure?" Sam chimed in speaking to Stuka directly for the first time while looking directly at Stuka's face, which was covered by his navy blue helmet. He noticed that Stuka cocked his head upward looking at the scientist and MONARCH tech specialist. "Correction, you are cleared for disclosure along with Unit Athena. Communication with Orion Central has been… minimized as of late." Stuka explained to him before looking back at the call logs to Orion Central.

Most of the calls displayed on his helmet's HUD showing that on average he would have made at least 10 to 15 SitReps to Orion Sword Central. However in the past two days, his SitReps had been minimized to roughly half that number, most of which were inconsequential matters such as climate and weather situations or hunting trips with Girain or his observation of the King of Monsters and the family.

"I get why he does that, leaks?" Girain saw Stuka nodded to her question as he maintained his vision on Sam's face. "Affirmative, twice that our operations were compromised to a certain extent. Communication to Central is on secured line at least until we know who set us up."

[hr]

Looking out of his office down the sprawling cubicles and various sections of his underground base. His eyes scanned across them one by one suspicion and paranoia radiating from the optics of his helmet and mask. Behind him Joe Marshall was observing the various communication traffics coming in and out of the base. It was a maze for the Orion Sword XO, they had agents all across Central Asia, more lone wolves across the globe to observe the world. Authenticating their IDs and security measures for integrity was taking forever.

"No luck?" Grey asked without even glancing over his shoulder, Joe simply shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes at the endless stream of data that he had to handle. "You know the answer would be that. Twice that we got compromised, and the most recent one, Jonah got firepower from mecha units that he couldn't have gotten otherwise." Joe mused groaning and cracking his neck, Grey simply stood still looking down at the cubicles below pondering in thoughts.

"Joe, what would you want from a man when he joins Orion Sword?" He asked the XO, to which Joe sighed out and poured himself a shot of Loch Lomond to drown his stress away. "Integrity, willingness, personal initiative, creativity, and discipline. Need I go on?" He remarked rhetorically. Knowing his organization's core principles for its members, Grey himself began to narrow down the demographics of his suspects.

"Where would a mole be if he were to compromise a military operation?" He asked Joe with a pop quizz like tone, Joe heard this and began to walk over to Grey looking down at the sight of Orion Sword sprawling base and hangars for their navy blue Rex Units. "Close, possibly high up, somewhere he can see maps and charts, ORBATs and the likes." Grey nodded to Joe's assessment as he then began to eye the cubicle area for one certain wing that he knew to be occupied by a rather shifty figure. "Indeed, there are loyalties that can be bought. We bought him once, who's to say another won't?" He remarked rhetorically as his gaze began to fix on the general direction of Rabi's cubicle.

Rabi himself was sitting by his cubicle, his eyes darted around wildly looking nervous and paranoid at everyone else around him, his computer screen jumped between windows of his bank account to the various surveillance operations and SysOp of the organization's networks. He looked rather sick, pale green and swollen from fear, but from what? Others slightly paid him a glance in curiosity but never bother asking.

Rabi knew from mission logs and black box from debriefed Orion operators that the recent ops was a success despite enemy intervention. It would not take long for Grey to figure out the mole's identity, he hid his phone inside the drawer of his desk, letting the mobile device broadcasted Rex Unit's armor data and tech specs to Natla, this time he was giving her details on their weapons as well as natural abilities, even though he encrypted the device using Orion Sword's own encryption algorithm and protocols, the money he got was far more than his peers.

A curse in disguise, the money he got was now over the $1,000,000,000 mark with the two payments by Natla and his own salary from Orion Sword. One snooping at the bank account and he knew he would be doomed, he was now racing to buy off as much as possible and get rid of the money before someone can figure him out. He looked around online shopping pages, ranging from yachts, private jets, condos, penthouse, luxurious items and assets, even private islands and headless nations up for sale.

He began to first plan for his "Disappear" act by purchasing a private island in the Caribbean where he won't have to pay taxes of any kind. Then he bought a yacht along with a private jet to access the island along with various other kinds of muscle cars and fine wines until his bank account began to dwindle to a more believable amount for Orion Sword. And yet, he knew that even with those purchases, once the bills came in, Grey would figure him out soon, best to get rid of those as well, Rabi thought.


	8. Chapter 8: Dinner Invitation

Chapter 8: Dinner invitation

It was a long way from Hellas, but still close to Hades all the same, the Charon sailed towards the New York harbor area, nothing was out of the ordinary for everyone, save for the early snow in November. The forecast was clear, a long blizzard was coming with the snowflakes being petals of an unrelenting storm of terror and fear.

So far no one batted an eye at the Charon, as far as the eyes can see, it was simply another freighter hauling its loads from somewhere-who-knows-where. The ship came to the Upper New York Bay with all intent and purposes to dock at the harbor, until it suddenly came to a stop in the middle and dropping its anchor, simply staying there for no apparent reasons, for the time being.

[hr]

November 3rd, 2026

Lemnos Island, 03:30 Hours

Their arrival had been rather abrupt, it was after all a sudden call for relocation and regrouping. Orders from the very top of Orion Sword prompting Stuka to swim his way to Lemnos Island with Girain following him very closely. Shiryu and Chikiryu were rotated out to the US for the time being, which left her being the sole GDI unit in the area to keep an eye on Stuka. But for her, she felt deep down she could trust him.

The two arrived on the southern tip of Lemnos and waded ashore on a small satellite island of Lemnos where Stuka found various Orion Sword troops and operators from their recent deployment. The Orion Sword fleet was mooring nearby apparently to provide security and support for the troops there.

He went to his normal procedure and locked down his prosthetic legs and simply stood still and begin to transmit his data wirelessly to the fleet's encrypted server farm. Girain noticed how the other Orion Sword operatives were walking around cautiously, trying their best not to get distracted by her presence while others were taking photos of her using their phones or mobile devices. "I suppose that I'm the honored guest?" Girain asked Stuka dryly, to which he nodded gently. "Affirmative, Mr. Grey instructed that I am to escort you to the rendezvous for communication."

"Really now? Sounds like a dinner invitation." She remarked sarcastically only to hear a buzz sound with a caller ID on her HUD, it appeared to be Mr. Grey due to the Orion Sword symbol with a number six superimposed on the logo. She then mentally tapped the answer button and saw Grey conducting a video call to her from his headquarters. He was out of his helmet for once in a while with the elder Caucasian man with seven feet tall stature and Herculean physique apparently busy with shaving his beard.

"Expecting a restaurant?" He asked her sarcastically, apparently taking a moment to play with her sense of humor. "Humor me, know any place that cater to both?" She asked him back giving him a soft chuckle hearing her rather casual manner. "Truly, wisdom can only bring with it humor. I wish but for the time being that will have to wait. We have a mole in our ranks, as you may have figured out. I have an idea who, but yet to have evidence against him." He stated calmly to her which Girain sat down gently, minding her body and the numerous Orion Sword humans around her.

"So you want me to smoke out the mole?" She asked him looking back at Stuka who was still transmitting his data to Orion Sword. Most of which were the knowledge they learned from the Scion of Atlantis so far. "More like cooperation and coordination. No alliances last forever but it's best that we make the most of it no matter how brief. Do you know where did the Lizard Slayers that pestered us the other day come from?"

He saw Girain cocking her head to the side gently while scratching her chin curiously, "Do tell." She retorted, to which he sighed out and began to elaborate while also washing his chin with his hands. "New York." He bluntly replied causing her to nearly shot up. "New York? You think someone in the DoD is trying to off all of us?" She asked hastily, only to see Grey shook his head gently. "No, not quite. The DoD had no records of purchases for these. They already shot down acquisition for these prototypes roughly 15 years ago due to cost overrun."

"Hypothetically, perhaps someone sold it to Jonah to empty their hangar and obtain some forms of compensation for the project's failure?" Stuka asked dryly, prompting Grey to nod to the Rex Unit's rationalization. "Indeed, under the table, out of sight and of mind. Amoral, but still a venture. We found who made it, Natla Technology Inc. Perhaps you've heard of the name in recent news?"

Mr. Grey would then forward to Girain the images of Jacqueline Natla, the CEO of the company who had what appeared to be a rather otherworldly appearance. A snow white albino hair and pretty gem like blue eye color, narrow cheekbones and chin while her skin complex was odd.

Too odd, Girain could tell a person can be Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Indian, Latin American by their look alone. But the tanned skin complex of Natla was anything but normal, she appeared to be an odd mix of skin tones ranging from heavy sun tanned brown to Caucasian white. From the looks of her alone Girain can tell she was definitely not human.

"Well beside the fact that she just got married and merged a tech company in New York not a lot to go on. You know her?" Girain asked Grey cautiously only to hear him hum in thought, "I guess not." She sighed out before Grey chimed in on the coms, "I do know her to be an ambitious woman, someone who spearheaded bleeding edge R&D department with particular focus on artifacts and archaeology."

Hearing this prompted Stuka and Girain to look at each other's face before something hit them like a hammer on their heads, it began to make sense now albeit gradually. "She's behind Jonah hounding us!" They gasped out in unison, it was the same conclusion that Mr. Grey had come to as well by the sight of his calm and motionless expression. "Last I heard she was on a honeymoon to Greece. Coincidence? Not one bit." He nonchalantly added, this was becoming a clear stark revelation for all of them as Girain stroke her chin thinking. "You want to knock on her door in New York?"

Grey nodded to Girain, "Precisely. She might be on vacation, but there's plenty of skeletons that one can't get rid of in a short amount of time. I can dispatch my Orion Sword elements to raid her mansion, we'll find something." Girain then added her own to the discussion by bringing up a holographic battle plan showing the area of New York and highlighted the address of Natla's mansion, she saw from satellite images that the mansion appeared to be an old Georgian style mansion with a heavily wooded path up to the mansion.

The estate sat on a hilltop overlooking a Marina bay with a personal dock for private yachts and boats. From the looks of the electrical outlines captured from spy satellites, Stuka and Girain could see that the estate had a massive sprawling underground area beside the basement, there could be numerous other operations going on inside the building that they may not be aware of. "I'd wager that she had sentry turrets beside the usual works. You?" Girain glanced at Stuka, "I'd wager that she would pay for PMCs instead of the regular security contractors."

"Either way, we'd have to expect her to pull every tricks in the book. Do you think the GDI can tolerate boots on the ground on US soil?" Hearing Grey's question gave Girain a moment in thought as she tapped her chin and hummed, her train of thought ran through the possibilities. Grady would tolerate a deployment, provided he has a political cover to break some rules. The other being a need for someone native the New York area that she knew. "I think I know someone who can…"

[hr]

November 2nd, 2026 (Local Time)

Fort Hamilton, New York 20:50 Hours

It was dead at night, the cantina had been cleaned out, the bar was full with alcohol for troops to sip and relax, enjoy themselves for the time being. But bedtime was coming soon so most of them were just relaxing in the lounge area, reading magazines, army approved materials, playing on their Xbox or just reading the letters from their loved ones.

Among these men was one human in particular that Girain had come to know, a Caucasian man with a thick beard on his chin with brown eyes with a standard crew cut on his otherwise bushy as a lion's mane brown ginger head. Nicolas Williams, Sgt. First Class, 29, 75th Army Ranger Regiment 3rd Battalion.

One of those was a selfie he took while sitting on Girain's hand dated 5 years prior. Nicolas appeared to have a triumphant and winning smile on his face while wearing his Rangers combat fatigue; an MICH with a kevlar desert camouflage pixel layer, a standard issued BDU with ACU and combat vest over his uniform with his M4A1 brandished on one hand.

He smirked at the picture, seeing it as fond memories he can always come back to during downtimes, until suddenly his phone rung with an unknown number calling. He recognized it as Girain's private phone number embedded into her system and picked up the phone to answer her. "Hey big girl, what's up?" He asked jubilantly, excited to hear the voice of the GDI's in-house celebrity of sorts.

"Hey Nic, how's New York, did you guys have a family reunion or something?" She asked him casually while Nic chuckled lightly glancing over the shoulder at the window seeing the Brooklyn Bridge and the city's skyscrapers shrouded in snow and clouds. "It's a cold day in hell for that, but we'll have it soon. How have you been? Awfully quiet lately like some communication blackout or something. Lemme guess they're trying to put you on par with Shiryu and his girlfriend Black Ops deployment ability right?"

He heard her chuckled back slightly as well but at the same time he also heard that she was walking indicated by the loud thudding and footsteps she had in the background. "Yeah well you wouldn't believe half of the things that I went into lately to begin with. Anyway, long story short, we got a manhunt Ops in New York. The Aesir Estate on the southwestern hill of town. You know it?"

Nicolas blunk in a moment of confusion and haze, he went out of the lounge for some fresh air and walked out to a portside area where he looked at the far side of town where the Aesir Estate was, the mansion built on a hilltop overlooking the lower Hudson River bay. "Heck yeah I do. Always want a piece of real estate there, anyone in particular?"; "Yeah, CEO Jacqueline Natla of Natla Tech, the one that just got married to the Winter guy. You guys will be pulling security, Orion Sword is doing the door kicking."

The Ranger coughed and nearly hurled out upon hearing how blunt and nonchalant Girain's mentioning of Orion Sword was. As far as he can see it, they were traitors to the US, USSOCOM and JSOC; the mere mentioning of Orion Sword being a participant in a sensitive and delicate op was obviously going to throw him off. "You kidding me? Them? Those bastards backstabbed us girl, did you have memory wipe or something?" He flabbergasted and blurted out confusingly trying to see if this was an out of season April's Fools joke.

"Not kidding Nic, I know it's out of the left field but I've been through some ops lately, both got jumped by Jonah's men equipped with high tech battle walkers MADE by Natla. Me and Orion Sword."; "So we want her head on a fine platter? Alright happy to play the part." Nicolas calmed down momentarily before making his awareness of the walking in the background known to Girain. "Hey uh are you walking somewhere?"; "Yes I am, currently in MEDCOM's turf now, on patrol, something's up, anyway I gotta go now, Grady's handling the politic parts so no worries." Before Nicolas can asked her for more, she hung up hastily leaving him completely overwhelmed with the info dump, he looked back at the phone's surface and blink.

Over by Girain's place somewhere in the Aegean Sea between Hellas and Anatolia, the two were patrolling one of the islands in the areas, Delos, seismic activities in the area suggest that something gigantic has just arrived in the region. Sonar readings on Girain and Stuka's HUDs also showed that feint signs of a colossal terrestrial being was prowling the area.

Deep under the surface, a charcoal black colossus was prowling the water way, swimming around the area of Delos. "Do you think it's Godzilla looking for us?" Stuka asked Girain with his G36KT in hand ready to open fire if necessary to defend himself and Girain. "Could be. Still, there could be other Titans. Positive ID first before firing." Girain instructed to Stuka and he nodded to her. She began to grow frustrated however, gritting her teeth as the signal continue to drop and spike on the sonar. Stuka noticed her twitching grew and knew that something did not bode well for either of them. "You seem to be irritated, something's wrong?" He asked politely while still sounding dull.

"I need a closer look." Girain remarked to him before wading into the water of the Aegean Sea and dive into the abyss to commence her search for the sonar signature she had been detecting. Shocked to see her sudden and rash action, Stuka almost immediately jumped into the Aegean Sea and began to swim after her in an attempt to prevent her from doing anything rash. "Wait! Unit Athena, I caution you against taking rash actions!" Stuka hastily warned her with his voice sounding much more urgent than before.

As he caught up to her however, he saw that the sonar signature that they've been monitoring had become much bigger and more recognizable. He felt an ominous and foreboding presence in the dark murky water of the Aegean Sea. That was when he saw a flickering blue light, followed by a row of pulsing atomic blue light scaring away sharks and other fishes of the Aegean Sea.

"He's here…" He uttered grimacing at the sight. "I know, but for what?" Girain remarked as Godzilla slowly lurched forward from the shadow, still pulsing his dorsal plates as a deterrent against hostile aggressions. Girain noticed that he was aiming at her in particular as he swam up to her and begin to slow down, he moved his head around looking up and down at her body before sniffing and nuzzling his snout against hers lovingly.

"Why is he displaying affection towards you Unit Athena?" Stuka asked confusingly before seeing Godzilla wrapping his arms around Girain and pressed her against the rock and begin to lick her chest. "I kinda helped him with raising Jr. So yeah, he and I are sorta in a relationship but not as much as Gojirin." Girain grunted and purred out synthetically in between her words as Godzilla was casually making out with her and pressed her down on her back and laid on top of her before pulsing his dorsal plates, as if to warn Stuka away from her. "I think he's jealous." Stuka remarked curiously prompting Girain to nod and tapped on his neck and pointed to the surface gesturing him to surface with her.

He nodded and began to let her go allowing room to maneuver as the trio surfaced, with Godzilla maintaining an intimate distance with Girain, as she waded towards the coast of Delos, Godzilla then proceeded to follow her and turned her around to face him. He then pressed her against the rocky cove before nuzzling her again this time with even more intense and passionate love making while Stuka was trying to break through his tail's swinging and swiping to rescue Girain from the King's grip.

"What are you doing here?" She asked Godzilla, mumbling and groaning under his love making as he gave her a moment of pause and stared intently into her beautiful blue sapphire optics. "I was looking for you, I sensed something pulsing, calling to me even. I followed my scent and found you unscathed." He then pressed another kiss on her mouth, forcing his rough leathery tongue into her mouth playing with her synthetic one, she felt tickle and oddly intensely aroused by Godzilla love making. She didn't like it at the moment though as she pressed her hands on his chest and push him back slightly. "Thank you Godzilla but, let's leave the love fest for some other times. Anyway, Stuka and I are busy with the Atlantis thing, we found a second piece of the Scion, still looking for the third."

Godzilla lurched forward and pecked her head gently before rubbing his snout against her forehead and wrapped both hands around her to hug her into his chest, giving a tender embrace. "It's dangerous, so let me go with you, it's better than just leave you on your own." Godzilla rumbled under his breath and licked Girain's metal body, "Alright, I guess I can let you come along. But no rumbling inside the human bases, I need those." Said Girain with a purr and he nodded to her tenderly before letting go.

"Athena come in, we got a bogey in your area heading towards Athens. Speed is 200 knots. Definitely not Mothra over." A GDI radar technician warned her on the coms line. Girain hearing this quickly tapped on her right ear and looked into the sky around her to search for targets. "Direction?"; "Sat intel confirmed it took off from Al Udeid Air Base, we lost contact with the base roughly 3 hours ago."

Disturbed by this, Stuka chimed in on the line and asked for confirmation on the status of CENTCOM's Forward HQ. "Say again GDI radar tech, any idea what happened to it?" Stuka asked bluntly but the radar technician was hesitant to disclose as the Rex Unit and his MFS Unit can be heard humming in the background. "Just tell us what happened." She stated bluntly to which the radar technician sighed out and filled her in, "Alright, we lost contact three hours ago when something massive woke up underground. Probably a Titan, last we got out of the base was a Theater wide alert."

Right at the last statement Girain saw a figure flying in the sky with leather wings flapping about sending gusts of winds over the trio of Godzillians and sent more debris flying around them. But it wasn't Rodan the Fire Demon, no, this thing appeared to be a hybrid. It had a four legged body of a mammal, namely a lion, leathery wings like Rodan with a human face and lion mane. "Bogey sighted and recorded, Orion Central can you run a cross reference check on that Titan?" Stuka forwarded the 5 seconds of video to Orion Sword HQ.

Wallace Barringer himself was on the mobile field HQ of Orion Sword watched the clip and quickly scrambled to find MONARCH database for something that matches with the Titan that Stuka had just sighted. But the moment he noticed Girain taking a head start chasing the Titan, "Stuka, intercept that damn thing!" Barringer shouted over the coms network, his voice filled with urgency. Stuka obeyed obediently and quickly give chase by jumping into the Aegean Sea, causing a colossal splash of water as he swam towards Athens with Girain.

It didn't take the aerial monster long to fly towards Athens and have its wings cause a massive gale blowing over the city lifting vehicles and debris flying. Buildings and houses were reduced to dust and hovels while the monster flew around, circling over the Aegean coast of the port of Piraeus before landing on the city's more modern areas and began to trample buildings and ripping up hotel buildings.

"Any NATO/GDI units in the area, prioritize civilian evacuation, I'll handle the Titan's rampage." Girain's instructed over the coms network, followed by confirmation from the humans as they hastily try to throw together effective barricades only to be blown off whenever they try. "Ma'am, we can't get the civies out of here. That thing is going to throw all of our plans into jeopardy unless you take it out. I'd say you should go gloves off with it." One of the human commanders on the coms called to Girain while huffing out exhaustively at the amount of debris flying around in the area clogging up his views.

"Affirmative I hear you. Let's hope that I won't wreck the entire Akropolis in the process." She grumbled and sighed out as she surfaced at the port of Piraeus with Godzilla and Stuka. The Hellenes were even more terrified at the presence of the King himself as they stampede and trampled one another towards safety of the Attican countryside. The Manticore landed on the Akropolis, leveling the entire ancient ruin of Athens in one go and send shockwave across the land, leveling more and more city blocks and ancient sites of Piraeus.

The King roared intimidatingly at the Manticore challenging the sphinx to a fight with him and the Manticore replied in earnest roaring a ghastly inhuman growl at Godzilla, Girain and Stuka. The trio of Godzillian steel themselves for what was to come as the Sphinx batted its wings and leap into the air, flying down at them, Godzilla charged up his atomic breath and fired a bright blue blast at the Manticore's face only to have it dodged and weaved around his shot, before pummeling its face into his chest and throw him back, causing his shot to take an erect pattern.

"Godzilla!" Girain and Stuka exclaimed in unison and ran for him only to be knocked by the Manticore as it pounced on Girain's back, kicking her forward before pouncing on Stuka, forcing him down on his back. As it tried to viciously claw at him using its claws and teeth, the Rex Unit quickly activated his shoulder cannon and focus fire on the monster's human face and let loose a hail of lead. It blew the monster staggering back and loosen its grip on him before giving him a chance to kick it off of him. "Athena, on your tail." He alerted her, prompting Girain to perform a tail swipe at the monster throwing it flying out at sea.

As Godzilla rose back from the brief tumbling, he saw the Manticore flying back at them this time aiming for Girain and Stuka first and foremost, the King was not going to let his subjects be endangered and quickly put himself in front of the Manticore as it was flying at Girain. He grabbed the monster by its face, slamming it across the piers of Piraeus and wrestle it to the ground, pinning it with both hands keeping it pinned in place.

The Manticore did not tolerate being interfered by the King, it snapped and bite him on his neck, trying to bleed him out as much as possible. The force of its bite however could only tickle Godzilla causing him to stagger backwards a bit giving the Manticore room to fly off again. But this time, Godzilla focused on a leading shot, firing his pulsing atomic breath ahead of the Manticore, hitting it directly in the human face, blowing it out of the sky.

As the monster crash on the ground, the monster slammed its face hard and send out a shockwave blowing debris into the sea and other directions. The result was predictably dust and debris covered the refugees and fleeing civilians of Athens, who were now being rocked by Godzilla's footsteps and the heat and dust akin to a volcano blast causing them to cower and clamor for help from the GDI.

"Is it dead?" Stukas asked cautiously now able to train his weapon on the Manticore as he and Girain fanned out and prowled the beast with Godzilla in the middle moving closer to it to check the monster himself. But as he got closer, the Manticore rose up, head butting his chin only to have him grabbing it by the throat and slam it around repeatedly. "There's your answer." Girain remarked sarcastically as Godzilla pounded the Manticore using what remains of marble stone buildings to blunt and further damaged its face. "Stuka, terminate it will you?" Stuka nodded to Girain's request and took a well placed shot at the Manticore's head, pulling the trigger and with a single shot, blew its brains out leaving Godzilla to glance over his shoulder at Girain and Stuka.

The King sighed out, tired from the battle and let go of the monster's remains and stepped back away from the corpse before sitting down propping himself against the coastal rocks and coves of the Aegean Sea. "Are you alright Stuka? You look pretty mess up." Girain asked him concernedly before kneeling down in front of Stuka inspecting his Rex Unit armor, there were dents, claw marks, scratches, holes and torn parts revealing his charcoal black Godzilla scale underneath.

Stuka was heaving steadily as he felt Girain's palm placed on his left chest where his heartbeat seem to pick up its pace at her touch. The dull and stilted Rex Unit looked up at Girain's face and simply gave his remark in the usual robotic tone. "BDS show that I suffered roughly 25% damage to my armor. I might need repair and maintenance in Orion Sword central, thank you for your concern." Girain nodded but can't seem to stand up and walk away from Stuka, she looked on, scanning his damaged armor and noting whatever little bits of flesh wounds he had. "Unit Athena, considering the circumstances and your cooperation as of late…" He paused for a moment to compose himself causing Girain to grow more curious to what he was saying, "Yes Stuka?" She asked him cautiously, "...Orion Sword has authorized your entry to our base. We'll depart shortly."

She gasped out stunted and appear to have a double take not sure if it was real, the way it sounded seems somewhat plausible on ground of trust but it was still too good to be true. "For real? You're not lying about this, are you?" She asked him urgently while Godzilla was looking at them curious and concern by her reaction. "It is clarified, Orion Sword command Mr. Grey and Joe Marshall have agreed to permit your entry and provide maintenance, technical support. However we must screen you for recording devices and transmission of our base's whereabouts."

Girain nodded understandingly to Stuka and sighed out feeling rather conflicted by what she was offered but must also comply with. She glanced over at Godzilla then back at the ruined city of Athens as well as the GDI forces on the ground helping facilitating the evacuation and housing of Greek refugees after their captial's destruction.

"Alright, I agree to the terms, understandable enough for Orion Sword." hearing her acceptance, albeit reluctant and heavy hearted, Stuka proceeded to hug her tenderly and rubbed his head against her chest. "Thank you for acceptance Unit Athena. Orion Sword is honored to host you for the time being." Girain if she could, she would have smiled back at Stuka, for the time being she pet and stroke him gently while the humans were busy sorting out the mess of Athens.


	9. Chapter 9: Liberty Lost

Chapter 9: Liberty Lost

November 4th, 2026

New York City, 11:13 Hours

For Americans, war has always been something far and remote, it would happen there not here they think. In fact for most of their lives, the Americans have only seen or heard of wars in foreign lands, separated by oceans far away from their daily lives. But Fate has a twisted sense of humor with the Charon being anchored in the harbor of New York.

"We're getting reports coming out from the harbor about an unidentified vessel anchored at the Manhattan Bay. Authority have made efforts to communicate but still no response-" the news anchor woman's report was cut short when her cameraman panned away from her face and zoomed in on the Charon much to her annoyance. "Hey what are you looking at? This is a news report right here!" Said the news anchor woman as she tried to rein in her cameraman only to turn around at the sound of rotating helicopter rotor blades.

Their televised coverage brought the sight of modern warfare to the shores of America and into the living room of every Americans watching at the moment. The gunship was an Mi-17 Hip gunship utility helicopter taking off from the Charon's deck after being elevated there by an elevator inside the cargo hold. The gunship sped off and flew towards the small and undefended Ellis Island and fired off a salvo of rockets into the immigration center on the island, leveling a good portion of the immigrant building at a moment's notice.

Before the Americans can have a moment to contemplate on the shocking turn of events, they were bombarded by footage of enemy forces rappelling out of the helicopters down on the islands and began to take over Ellis first. The rest flew to Liberty Island and occupied the defenseless islands within minutes, establishing their occupation of the three islands in the Manhattan Bay area.

Much to the chagrin of the American viewers, the invaders were equipped with gunships like the aging but still venerable Mi-24 Hind models, Mi-17 Hip gunships cruising around swatting off enemy patrol boats and demolishing the wooden boardwalk bridge of Ellis Island linking it to the rest of New York and Jersey. For the Americans watching, war has come home and nothing will ever be the same again. For the news cycle of America, it's prime time.

[hr]

Central Asia, Taklamakan Desert, 24:13 Hours (Local Time)

As promised, Stuka led Girain on foot back to his base, after being able to come into range of Orion Sword's Herons, the two were airlifted by them back to Orion Central in the Taklamakan Desert. Hanging just under the carriage of the Herons, suspended by the magnetically locked cables made Girain felt nauseous as she was vertically lifted from their pick up point towards the LZ which was Orion Sword's base.

The world below for her was like a sandbox with occasional camel riders, houses and humans like insects to a titan like her, Godzilla did not follow her, oddly trusting of her decision to depart on her own. It was out of character for him, she thought. But she didn't have time to dwell on the matter and came to a definitive conclusion, only hypothesis.

Once they have arrived at Orion Sword base, the Herons hovered over what appeared to be a middle of nowhere in the desert and dropped the two off before flying back to their airfield. Girain on instinct attempted to access her map and GPS coordinates, only to find that her map was scrambled and rendered useless, static and grainy screen display. The only thing she got left to navigate was her compass as she looked around attempting to find a noticeable landmark. "Orion Central, this is Unit R-1001 Stuka, have returned with Unit Athena escort requesting entry." Stuka called on his coms and soon heard a human voice replying to him.

"Affirmative Stuka, we hear you. Welcome home big guy, and Athena, welcome to Orion Sword, make yourself at home." The Orion Sword controller stated plainly with a rather relaxed and casual tone compared to the other personnel and operators of the organization, but as far as anyone is concerned, most of Orion Sword had a laid back attitude not so different from the SOCOM community they spawned out from.

Girain saw the massive rampart rose up from the desert revealing what appeared to be Orion Sword's tunnel entry, it wasn't just a cramped tunnel, rather it was a sprawling underground city/military complex rolled into one. Stuka could walk right into the tunnel entry and followed it to an elevator with Girain. Once the two were on the pad, the elevator slowly lower them down from the surface to roughly 300 meters underneath the ground, cutting her completely from external communications.

"Welcome Athena, to Orion Sword you are the first GDI Combat mecha unit to have the honor of entering our premises." Stuka commended her with a slightly more uplifting tone than before, he led her through a series of corridors with catwalks and scaffolding for humans to traverse. They all look at Girain, marveling at her size and stature, taking photos of her with their phones, tablets and cameras as she walked with Stuka. "Not sure if that's an honor, but thank you nonetheless." Girain awkwardly replied trying to be polite and friendly towards Stuka in a place that can turn hostile towards her at any given moment.

"Hey look, she's pretty awkward around him, maybe they're a couple." one of the Orion Sword operators there joked and smirked playfully, one look at his facial hair and skin tone, the others can tell he was an Uzbek, one of the many Central Asian ethnic groups that chose to fight for the organization against the Russian imperialists. "Dream on Dosharak, if you can stand at their height, then maybe we'll let you be the matchmaker." The others remarked with laughter while Girain and Stuka tried to look away hiding their embarrassment at the thought of office romance between rivaling organizations.

"Uh I'm not in the mood for Romeo and Juliet." she sarcastically remarked, to which Stuka nodded to her cautiously as he held her hand and led her to a large common room area for mecha units. There she found herself in the presence of 9 other identical Rex Units to Stuka. One was on weightlifting, the other was doing weapon maintenance, others were checking their equipment, running drills and simulations as well as watching the news of what was happening in the US.

"All units, we have a special guest tonight, please greet MFS-4 Athena." Stuka informed his fellow Rex Units, causing the navy blue Rex Units to turn at Girain and approached her gently before they all grouped up in front of her like a bunch of mewing kittens in front of a new female cat, begging her to be their mother. "Greetings unit Athena, how can I assist you?" They asked in a creepy monotonous unison. A typical example of Orion Sword regimented behavioral programming for their much vaunted Rex Units, it didn't sit well with Girain who felt creeped out by their unison droning voices.

"Uh… hi guys?" She sheepishly replied with a step back. "I guess perhaps you could show me around the place and help my accommodation until I'm free to return to the GDI…" She attempted to be reasonable, to which the Rex Units all nodded to her and began to lead her towards what appeared to be a maintenance chamber. There they had various mechanical arms on the sealing waiting for a mecha unit to come into place for repair or mods. Operating these was of course the chief technician Wallace Barringer himself, he waved at her from the Observatory higher up, the rather pudgy looking middle-aged man eagerly waited for Girain to walk in and let him operate on her and it didn't seem to make her any more comfortable.

"You look like you are waiting for a chance to molest me up there Barringer." She retorted with a deadpan tone, causing him to snort and nearly burst out laughing. "With all due respect ma'am, Mr. Grey would have me hung by my entrail if I did." He remarked nonchalantly to her before seeing Girain stepping on to the pad for maintenance.

There she saw that a cable latched into the neural outlet port on the back of her neck, it snapped into place, giving her a jolt of static electricity coursing through her body. She felt her nerves grew numb and her body went into a limp status. She could still talk and listen but she could not feel anything else let alone move her head around while she faces the observatory.

She noticed a taller more robust man clad in advanced cybernetic armored suit and ballistic mask walked into the observatory to sit down next to Barringer. He appeared to slouch over the chair as he looked at directly in the eyes, facing her attentively while marveling her mechanical body structure.

"Mr. Grey no doubt." She stated, seeing him nodding to her observation. "Indeed, your reputation precedes you Athena, I am honored to meet you in person."; "Same here sir, although you are an international wanted man and I'm supposed to bring you in." She replied to him, seeing him nodding in understanding towards her while Stuka was assuming position next to her to have himself worked on. Similar to Girain, he had a cable lodged into the neural port on the back of his neck to keep him numb while his armor suit was being removed for repair.

"Even when we will inevitably start shooting each other again, I would take no joy in destroying in you, my dear." he remarked with a reverend tone towards her, making Girain felt somewhat weird by his attraction and apparent admiration for her.

"Knowing your service records, the feelings mutual as well." She sighed out, the mechanical arms above her were going over her body, they first began to cut out her armor plates and remove the damaged portions off of her. The other arms were conducting deep surgery into artificial muscles, the operation would have been painful and stinging for her if it weren't for the cable disconnecting her consciousness from her body.

Noticing the changes, Girain felt somewhat more relief at the operation as she was being worked on, but her concern was not completely relieved when she noticed that other mechanical claws were removing her transponders for security measure. They were working deep around her head and torso, where her transponders were installed along with GPS equipment. With those removed, she was without maps or coms to actively communicate with others. As such, she was left a silent mecha unit only able to observe Mr. Grey and Barringer.

In its place, she saw an Orion Sword marked GPS signal transponder and their own brand of satellite phone, radio equipment ranging from UHF, VHF, HF, being installed into her. "Let me guess, keep your base hidden at all times?" She asked after the equipment was installed into her and synchronized with her system. "Indeed, a security measure we must take. Who knows what those pesky Chinese would want to do? Or the Russians? When we're done, we'll give you back your transponder and coms. For the time being, tuned in on Orion freqs."

Once the work was done, and their armor were reassembled together, Girain felt oddly at ease by the care given to her by Orion Sword, she then on instincts ran a diagnostic check on her system to see if her system was safe from malware or spyware. Her diagnostic ran through every single application in her system, her lines of code and BIOS and hard drive. Nothing. She took a sigh of relief at this knowing that for now she's safe. "I thought that you were going to install something into me, would have been the perfect chance then and there to hijack me, like you did to Shiryu."

Grey shook his head nonchalantly to her statement, "Pragmatic yes, but not the best of time. As long as the mole is still out there, we are all still in danger. He already compromised the Rex Units by leaking their tech specs." His disclosure was most shocking to hear, and rightly so for Girain as it would mean anyone with enough money and madness can afford their own anti Rex Unit miracle weapon. "That big of a leak? I'm surprised you haven't stamped them out yet." Girain blurted out in utter shock, "There's always more than a mole Athena. It would be wise to understand the actual depth of their connection. Do you know how hard it is to provide logistic service for a single AH-1 gunship? It's not like you can make the entire trail invisible." Barringer remarked his observation to Girain who then took it with a bit of thought as she leaned in closer on the observatory.

"So in short, the net is vast and we are but grains of sand in it." She concluded seeing the two nodding to her hypothesis, Grey seems to be the most impressed by her observation and thought process. "They made the right choice naming you Athena, we'll make sure the mole is either dead or compromised. You have my word for it. As for accommodation, well, you can share space with Stuka's squad, I'm sure the cooperation would be more than welcomed by them."; "Thank you sir, Mr. Grey. That would be all." She softly thanked him before proceeding to follow Stuka and his fellow Rex Units back to their common room.

As she followed him, Girain glanced over at Stuka noticing that he was holding her hand the whole way, it wasn't on ordered like he usually does. Rather t seems to be out of a genuine interest in her, a fondness it seems at first. "So uh Stuka…" She shyly began, catching his attention as he panned his head over to face hers. "Yes Athena?"; "Stuka, I uh… don't know how to say this but… I think I actually like you. A lot." hearing this made his heart jumped and skip a beat, he heard from her own voice that she seems to have reserved affection for him. "You do? You… care for me... that much?" he asked wondering if what she said was real.

"Yes I do." She confirmed it making him feeling much more flustered than before. "At first it was just for survival on the Andes. But after Greece, I felt that we made a pretty great team. You did save my life in the Andes and Greece." Hearing this made Stuka felt much more mellow than he should have, his head began to spin around and he felt dazzled by the kind words coming from Girain. And once they were in the common room of the Rex Units, he then reached to her shoulders with both hands, prompting her to kneel to his height face each other. "Thank you Athena, I was only doing my job but I am pleased to know that it was exceptional for you."

Girain then placed her hands on his cheeks holding his face looking right at hers before whispering softly to him. "Stuka, may I see your face?" She asked softly to him, seeing him nodded prompting her to let go of his cheeks before he reached up to unplugged his helm's locks, the hissed was followed by a plopping sound as he removed the sleek and angular navy blue helmet to reveal his true face.

Unlike Godzilla, his face seems much more narrow, it was slim down and angular at around the snout being shorter and stubbed compared to Godzilla. His ears appeared to be angled backwarded while then his most defining feature were his fangs being long and saber like, almost like a saber tooth tiger. In fact, his feline like feature also extend to his eyes which were emerald green with a narrow cat like iris slit.

For a moment Girain was silenced, she appeared to be examining his facial feature and appearance, he felt nervous, paranoid even that she might be judging him harshly in her head. Maybe he wasn't handsome enough for her like Godzilla, "Am I…?" he nervously asked, fearing that she might confirm his hypothesis.

"I think you look fine. As far as Rex Units are concerned, I think you might be the most handsome of the bunch." Girain remarked kindly to him, although she wasn't able to smile under her stiff armor faceplates, she did come off as genuine in her affection for Stuka before she nuzzle his snout. Stunted and taken completely off guard by the act of kindness she displayed, Stuka proceeded to nuzzle back at her vigorously.

The action did not go unnoticed however, since there were humans watching them along with Mr. Grey and Barringer who were watching from their observatory via CCTV. Grey and Barringer were highly intrigued by the display of emotional maturity on Girain's part and Stuka's own apparent respect and affection for her was much higher than anticipated. "You think that's a problem?" Barringer asked while musing on the sight of Girain and Stuka cuddling and purring. "No, I would say this is what should have gone down between me and the GDI. But Fate has other plans of course." Grey nonchalantly remarked, he didn't seem at all annoyed by the display of love and affection between them. "My only concern is a child out of the wedlock between them. The public won't take it well to know more are being bred, secondly it's the question of logistic but that's for another day."

Barringer nodded in agreement before handing Grey a collection of X-Ray photos of Girain's interior, Lenox himself took the photos and examined them carefully, noting that indeed in terms of mechanical engineering, Girain might be the apex with her synthetic organs and artificial muscles giving her a degree of fluidity and mobility beyond what other machines could do. Her DNA Computer A.I also proved to be quite efficient in solving complex problems and tactical as well as strategic decision making. However, her ability to process emotion and display them with a humanlike manner was more than what most would bargain for. And yet none of those intrigued Grey, he was however paying attention to her lung area, where what appeared to be an atomic organ furnace was developing.

Barringer was musing at the photo the most, the X-Ray shot of her innards seems to have detected a small dose of radiation coming out of her, what was odd to them both was that this furnace as it seem was only roughly a week old. Its growth and development indicated by the way it tapped into her synthetic lungs suggest that the atomic furnace might be aiming for recreating Godzilla's internal organs.

"Where do you think this will go?" Grey asked, pondering the possibilities in his head. "Don't know. It can go anywhere, timing places it back to around her contact with the Scion piece was made. Whatever that Scion did to her, she's changing. Like a rapid growth in her organic components, using existing synthetic organs to develop and map out. Either way I'm not sure how or where will this go." Barringer's words were of course laced with confusion, it was clear the chief technician did not know where this new development will go in the long run. This only leave Grey ever more concerned, Girain might be in danger, he thought, but just how dangerous exactly, remains the question.

[hr]

New York at that same time…

The team was ready near the Winter Estate, Orion Sword moved fast and did not waste time when they mobilized a strike team against their common enemy with the GDI. The team members were all wearing black uniforms from top to bottom, MICH helmets with tinted gas masks, GPNVG-18s, balaclava masks to hide their faces, Tactical Plate Carrier Vest with pouches for spare magazines on the front for their H&K M416s.

The individual fireteams were scattered around the premises and were communicating with each other via morse codes, flashing strobe lights at one another before finally moving out. "Rifle-1 this is Rifle 2, in position and holding over." The north entry team called on the coms, the sound of crickets chirping can be heard and snow rustling under their footsteps as they moved under the cover of the shrubs and vegetation of the forest. "We hear you, Rifle-1 moving to position, ETA 10 secs, out."

Each of the strike teams consist of 8 men, a total of 16 men divided into eight 2-men buddy teams to clear out the individual rooms of the building. "Rifle-1, engaging tangos now." The Orion Sword commandos each armed with an MP5/10SD took aim at the security personnel around the perimeter of the building and took synchronized shots at the targets dropping the two tangos instantly along with their guard dog.

"Pooch is snoozing permanently." one of them remarked coldly as they moved up closer to the building, taking crouching stances under the cover of trees. "Rifle-2, just took out a bunch of guards, something's not right here."; "Say again Rifle-2, didn't read your last over." Rifle-2's Pointman as running a checklist on the man he just took down, what struck him the most was the fact that these security personnel appear to be rather well armed and equipped for an estate guard.

"Tactical vest, coms with Army encryption, M67 frag, M84 flashbang. M4A1 Carbine. This guy ain't getting it from your local security firm."; "Affirmative, all Rifles be advised, we got armed tangos in the building. Expect trouble." Rifle Lead warned them, as the teams stacked up by the doorways of the Estate's front and pool entrances, they picked the lock and sneak snake cams under the crevices of the doors to gather intel on the opposition on the other side of the doors.

Rifle-1's snake cam showed multiple tangos roaming around the house, ransacking the place and pile up books and notes, anything flammable into a mound inside the living room with gasoline poured on. "Alright, they're burning evidence time to move in, breach charge up. Flashbang at the ready. Go." The team leader ordered with his breacher specialist came to the door and tied a doorknob breaching charge on the large stubby knob. He yanked the primer fuse below and got clear of the blast, "Breaching, breaching!" The charge blew up and one of the Orion Sword operators lobbed in the M84 flashbang, stunning the tangos in the room.

Rifle-1 then pushed inside gunning down multiple hostiles in the living room before they began to fan out and slowly, methodically clear out other rooms of the building, "Shit, they're here. Cops?" One of the securities asked his colleague as they hide behind the kitchen counter, "Fuck knows man. The lady called and said she wanted her house-" Before he could finish what he was saying, the Orion Sword operatives slain them both with their MP5/10SDs. "Two X-Rays down, kitchen is clear over."; "Roger that Rifle-1, moving upstairs now."

As the teams continued their methodical clearing of the building, they dropped more tangos, some were hiding inside of closets and wardrobes or even bathroom, others were ducking behind beds and furniture, trying to make use of blind corners to take a shot at the incoming Orion Sword teams. But they were not well trained enough to pull off their ambushes, the Orion Sword members covered each other, flanking through hallways and rooms before gunning down their targets without hesitation.

"All clear, all Rifles, be advised building is secured, I repeat building is secured over." The squad leader Rifle Actual called out, giving them all a collective sigh of relief feeling that the hardest part was over. 1-2 and 1-3 were down in the cellar with 2-1 and 2-2 to support, beside a wine cellar of obscenely rich people, they came across what appeared to be a rather odd chamber, one that was built to be hidden from others filled with hieroglyphic writings and inscriptions of texture never seen before by any humans.

"Actual this is 1-1, I got something here for ya, maybe command want to take a look at this." 1-1 called out, taking photos with his digital camera of the safe room, he found various photos of individuals with a red circle on them, some were of Mr. Winter the owner of the estate. Others were oddly enough, photos of Rex Units like Shiryu and Chikiryu, with some of Girain and Godzilla. "Someone's doing their homework, this looks like a hit list or something, someone's painting targets of Corsair and Athena. Couldn't be Winter though since he's pretty much a dumbass." 1-1 mused as he worked around the evidence trying to interpret the data there.

As he did so, he found a map of what appeared to be the globe dating back to prehistoric ages, perhaps Mesozonic Age judging by the continental layout. It was hung on the wall next to a map of the modern Earth with the red markers circled around a particular area in what would become the Atlantic Ocean, just beyond the straits of Gibraltar but now apparently sunken, all these were linked together by red strings around ancient, possibly prehistoric depiction of the Scion of Atlantis that Stuka and Girain have been collecting, but there were three pieces of the Scion. "Rifle Actual, this is 1-1, we got a jackpot here over."

[hr]

Central Park staging area, Manhattan

The CH-47s were ready, at this point these helicopters were being spooled up with the Rangers from the 75th Ranger Regiment being loaded up as a QRF strike force, their back up was the 101st "Screaming Eagles" Airborne Division. The Airborne troops were locked and loaded, their M4A1s cocked and ready to rock, their M249s and Battle Rifles were ready with their rounds chambered, they boarded the ramps of the Army CH-47s with their platoon leaders making head counts for their company commanders.

The Rangers were using MK16 SCAR-L and MK17 SCAR-H along with M249s, M240s similar to the Airborne Infantry with various other attachments like grenade launchers, sniper scope, bipods depending on their roles. Amongst them was Nicolas Williams, kitted out in his full battle gear and brandishing his SCAR-L with EGLM attachment and a Red Dot Sight on his rifle.

He boarded the CH-47 and saw the soldier sitting in his opposite was an Airborne, obviously 101st. His name tag said Grady with the man apparently in his late 20s and early 30s with a 1st Lieutenant insignia on his uniform. The man appeared to have an M4A1 with ACOG scope mounted along with laser module on its side rail and a foregrip on the under barrel rail. He seem to have his face downward looking at an envelope in his hand, he gazed at it intently as if it were a love letter, Nicolas took notice and was curious at who it was meant for.

"Don't you have a wife already?" He asked, Lt. Grady took notice of Nicolas and shook his head and made a wryly smile out of nervousness. "Nah man, Carleen ain't my type man. I mean she just doesn't feel natural." He wrangled his own words, seemingly having difficulty to make his point clear.

"You're cheating her for who? Some $2 hoe crawled out of some Hoboken whorehouse?"; "Hey for one I'm from Vegas, and two I ain't cheating for some two bits THOT, I'm talking about THE queen of the GDI. Yeah someday I'm gonna hitch her and she's gonna an American." His boast from an uncontrollable mouth caused the whole passenger cabin to burst into laughter at his statement thinking it was a joke, he kept his serious face on with a shaking head in disapproval while Nick and his Ranger chalk laughed their heads off.

"Ya serious? Ya serious? Are you really serious? Let me ask you this J, back in Saradia she saved your ass and you helped her out. But you're a sidekick and let's not forget, she's over 100 meters. You're like 1/10th of her size. No way that's gonna work." Nicolas advised Jason in an honest friendly manner trying to take the letter away from his hands before being swatted off by Jason.

"Hell no man, I made my decision, and I ain't turning around on it. After this is over, this thing will go straight for the mailbox."; "Yeah we'll be waiting for the reply letter, probably enough to cover my family's entire block." the passenger cabin laughed on at Jason while he kept his letter under his BDU inside a personal pocket.

As the CH-47s flew over the islands of Ellis, Liberty and Governor, the Rangers and Airborne Infantry of the Screaming Eagles, were given the sight of Manhattan Bay area from the area out of their CH-47s and UH-60s Blackhawk. "All callsigns this is Eagle-6, Snow Eagle. I repeat, Snow Eagle, mission's a go, good luck and godspeed everyone." with the codeword given, the UH-60s made a flyby over the smallest of the three, Ellis Island and began to spray M134 rounds on Jonah's mercenaries garrisoned there.

Some other Blackhawks circled around in orbit, laying down suppressive fire on the other end of the island while the Chinooks came in disembarking troops by the southern side of the island. One by one the CH-47s disembarked their chalks before flying into holding patterns.

They circled around raining minigun rounds down on the enemies running on the ground, while then the Rangers like Nicolas and Screaming Eagles like Jason began to fan out and retake the island one building at a time. Due to the initial bombardment, the Immigration Center was leveled, creating many hiding spots for the enemies.

Jason and his platoon of airborne infantry fought through the rubble of surrounding apartment blocks. Each time, they let Nicolas and his Ranger chalk to move up take point while they followed behind filling the gaps with their M4A1s, M249s, occasional MK14 EBRs, waiting for the enemies to make their first move and pop up to play what was essentially a whack-a-mole game.

"Clear!" One of the privates shouted as he trained the holographic sight around the rubble of the Immigration Center as he moved about tactically with his teammates following closely to cover for him. As they came closer to the Immigration Center, they saw a pair of Jonah's fighters slinking through the rubble of the Immigration Center, "Contact! Two tangos with AKs, he's by the counter to the front!" One of the Rangers shouted out, tossing a frag grenade at the counter to flush out the enemies, surely enough, as the tangos attempted to move, the grenade detonated leaving a mess of gore, human remains, blood and organs splattered on the floor and wall. "Stay switched on, these guys could be anywhere around here." Williams barked out reminding his Rangers not to relent or let their guards down.

As they pushed on, clearing through the rubble, with the crackling of muzzle flashes and sporadic gunfire echoed through the air, the RTO of the Screaming Eagles paused for a moment to check in with command and report situation progress. "Eagle-6 this is Ajax-6 Romeo, we've secured Ellis Island, took out roughly a half company size force, waiting for instructions over." The radio operator of Jason's platoon spoke to their commanding officer on the satellite radio he had on his back while resting his M4A1 on its stock with his right hand holding the weapon's foregrip.

"Ajax-6 this is Eagle-6, I have a new priority for you over. We have intel confirming hostages on Liberty Island, we have a priority 1 to rescue them or else." The colonel spoke to them causing some confusion to the radio operator who asked back in confusion. "Say again Eagle-6? What do you mean by 'or else'? Shouldn't the SEALs or Delta handle this?" he asked in slight confusion and grumble as he stayed crouch to listen on his commander's instructions carefully. "That's an affirmative Ajax-6. We need you to conduct assault on the island's northern edge as diversion. The SEALs will come in from the South and secure the hostages. Copy?"

He nodded before giving his CO 1st Lt. Grady a glance to relay the message, "Solid copy Eagle-6, we'll get moving out." But while the Airborne infantry and Rangers began to assemble for their rapid assault on Liberty Island, their commanding officer, Colonel Foster, was by the Battery Park looking at Liberty Island with her binoculars. The colonel sighed out in despair seeing the Statue of Liberty standing tall but the island itself was overrun with hostile forces moving around patrolling the place with BTRs, BMPs, UAZs and D-30 howitzers.

But most attention worthy for her was the sight of an enemy cruise missile battery erect and ready to launch, the weapon itself she could tell was an Iskander ballistic missile ready to fire. Her first instinct kicks in as she uttered tersely to her RTO standing next to her under the cold snowy November air, a bonfire. "Call in the strike."l "But sir that's the Statue of Liberty!" the RTO objected and panicked for a moment. "And this is war, son. Do it." She replied to him, silencing his concern as he reluctantly brought the radio telephone up and began to call it in.

"Devil 1-1 this is Eagle-6, code Olympus, I repeat, code Olympus. Weapons free, I repeat weapons free. Copy that, ETA 10 minutes over and out. Colonel Foster, they're on the way." The RTO stated defeatedly with a long sigh, when she looked at him she had a glimmer of sympathy in her eyes as she nodded to him before asking him for a favor. "Good now get Barnes on the horn for me."

As such, the RTO follow suite and dialed up the frequency of Barnes and his G-Team who were accompanied by members of SEAL Team 2 were gearing up with their rebreather gears, swimsuits, harnesses, M4A1s with various attachments, all of them were equipped with appropriate winter white gear. Barnes sat on the SDV as the minisub carried them closer to Liberty Island.

"Barnes, you read me? What's your ETA?" Foster's voice crackled through the coms as the breathing apparatus allowed them to reply to her albeit in a rather muffled manner. "Affirmative Colonel, we're less than 2 mikes out over."; "Barnes listen carefully, I've just ordered an airstrike on the objective. You have T-minus 10 mikes to retake Liberty Island or else we'll be kissing the Statue and your ass goodbye."

Barnes himself was in shock upon hearing this, he didn't blow up like others would, "Say that again over, you're sending us into the BBQ to prevent it from happening in the first place?" He asked sounding profused, "That's an affirmative. It's either a Statue and a few civilian casualties plus my resignation of command, or a couple of hundred million dead civilians. You know what to do Barnes, don't let me down." Barnes sighed out in despair knowing that there was no way he could object to her decisions, he opted to continue with the SEALs and perhaps with a bit of luck he might just save the day.

To the northside of the Island, AH-64E Apache Guardians were hitting the entrenched enemies on both Liberty and Governor's Island. They hung back, hovering over the water using TADS and Hellfire missiles along with their Longbow radars to identify the most dangerous threats, which were enemy BTRs and BMPs along with ZU-23 guns that can threaten the Chinooks and Black Hawks.

Each missile flew off the rails, flying towards their targets and slam on the top side of vehicles and turrets, turrets were seen flying off the charred and burned husks of destroyed vehicles. Once the missiles were expended, they closed in with their Hydra rockets and 30mm chain guns strafing the enemy defensive positions. Once it was done, the gunships pulled out, leaving the battlefield a charred and burned landscape with fallen trees, twisted and mangled vehicle scraps, crumbled buildings and craters.

"Yeah get sum! Get sum! WOOO!" The Rangers cheered enthusiastically seeing the enemy being pounded to bits by their gunships, the closer their Chinooks got the louder the secondary explosions got to the point that they too felt the impact and vibration went through the passenger cabin. Eventually their Chinooks circled around to the other end of Liberty Island, where there was open ground to disembark troops and while the enemies were reeling, the Chinook hovered in place allowing the Rangers and Airborne Infantry to quickly disembark.

The platoon of Rangers and Airborne quickly jumped off the ramp while some enemy fighters were opening fire upon them, Jason narrowly dodged a bullet, only for one of his men to get hit in the torso. "Man down!" He screamed out, their disembark was very much killzone for the enemy, the Chinook was in a vulnerable position with no terrain cover. True enough, the enemies began to launch RPGs at the CH-47 while the gunners were struggling to suppress enemy fighters from bringing the bird down.

"Shit whoever came up with this idea probably got shit for brains." Nicolas cursed under his breath as he crawled on his stomach towards the safety of some rubble with other Rangers setting up a defilade position. "Something tells me we're just baits." Said Jason as he crawled on his stomach towards Williams, as he did so, however, an RPG struck the CH-47 as the helo began to fly away, "We're hit! We're hit! I lost hydraulic, engine losing power, we're going down hard! Bachelor 2-2 is going down, I repeat Bachelor 2-2 is going down!" the helo began to careen over as it flew over Liberty Island making its circle around before crashing into the ground.

"Oh shit! We lost a Chinook, I repeat lost a Chinook, Jesus Christ it's still burning." Williams cried out as his Rangers kept pouring their fire on the enemies while Williams raced towards the wreckage. "Eagle-6, this is Anvil Actual, we got a Chinook down, pilots are wounded, crew chief and gunner are KIAs. Attempting to move them to a safe area now over."; "Roger that Anvil Actual, be advised you must maintain enemy focus fixed firmly on you. Do not let up. We have a SEAL team moving in to close the lid on them."; "Affirmative Eagle-6. Be advised, we may not have the space for CASEVAC, may need the barges from Brooklyn to help."

As Williams began to drag the unconscious and bloodied pilot out of the burning wreck of the Chinook, his fellow Rangers and Airborne of the 101st continued to fan out to secure a triage area for their wounded. "Come on Nic! That thing is gonna blow!" Jason shouted to Nick as he attempted to warn the Ranger. Indeed the wreck of the Chinook still had burning engine remains with the fuel remaining inside was help lighting the flame further and further. As Nicolas and his Rangers removed the Co-pilot and ran as fast as they could, the Chinook exploded violently with whatever that's left now a charred husk between the GDI/US troops and their enemies.

"Shit that was too close, too close for comfort! Anybody here got a fucking idea when are the SEALs going to whoopass?" Jason snark snidely as he checked for pulses and heartbeats of the pilots. "I hope they're not freezing their balls waiting for some Admiral's standby order to expire." Said his Williams as he trained the sight of his M4A1 on one of the RPG gunner running around at the base of the Statue.

In their dire straits, the Rangers and Airborne Infantry became the very thing the plan wanted them to be, the bait to lure attention away from the SEALs. Their tenacity and determination to fight kept the enemy fighters from noticing the SEALs slowly coming up behind them. The SEALs and G-Team were equipped with MP5SD5s and grenades, flashbang, tear gas for close quarter engagements.

"G-Team, on me we're going for the missile launcher. The SEALs are going for the hostages and secure the Statue." Barnes signaled for his teammates to follow him, as they began to fight their way towards the ballistic missile. The SEALs around them quickly fan out into Fireteam and engage the enemy entrenched in and around the Statue and began to push their way forward, slamming the proverbial lid on the enemies as intended. "Well well, look who it is, the SEALs finally come in to save our Army asses. Where have you frogmen been? Shopping in Paris?" Nicolas sarcastically snarked with a relieved grin on his beardy face as the SEALs and G-Team assault the enemy position.

As the SEALs pushed their way into the Statue of Liberty, they first tossed in flashbang, to stun the enemies before storming in with their MP5SDs double tapping the tangos that were stunted. They secured the hostages in clockwork manner and tied up the hands of the hostages before move them out one at a time, tossing them from one SEAL to another. Two more SEALs ran up the Statue to conduct a clean sweep of the Statue while Barnes and his G-Team made a mad dash towards the Iskander missile.

G-Team and their SEALs escorts fixed, flanked and finished the defenders with ease as the enemies had already expended a good portion of their ammo on the Rangers and Airborne Infantry. "Martinez, disarm the damn thing!" Barnes ordered his teammate who quickly ran towards the instrument panel and removed the cover panel to see what he could do. "Okay, working on it now, damn Russian junk and their redundancy." Martinez grumbled as he held up a field computer in his hand and siff through the security authentication protocols.

"Martinez, ETA is T-minus 2 minutes, better hussle up already or we're gonna be BBQ!" Barnes hastened his teammate who struggled to work through the Russian security protocols, struggling to read Cyrillic alphabets. "Soldier what the hell is going on here? I thought you were supposed to bus the civies out of here?" Barnes called out to Jason and Williams on the coms with the two struggling to work with their own wounded. "Yeah well we would if it weren't for the asshole with an RPG. We gotta wait for the ferry to evac the civies from the island." Jason replied with an annoyed grumble as he vaulted over some rubble and sprinted with his Airborne infantry towards the Statue of Liberty before pushing up to the top.

Once they were at the very top of the Statue, Jason and the Airborne Infantry popped green flares and waved them up in the air to notify the island has been retaken. "Martinez?" This time Barnes received a confirmation from his teammate who was busy working on the missile, after sifting through the numerous possible disarm codes and entered the correct one, the Iskander missile lowered down into its armored casket and put into standby mode. "It's a good day to die, but it ain't today." Martinez remarked with a relieved laugh.

By the Brooklyn Battery Park, Col. Foster was observing with her binoculars when she saw the Iskander missile disarmed and the green flares burning on the top of the Statue of Liberty. She felt a euphoria of relief and was quick to call her RTO, "I see green smoke! Tell them to abort damn it!"; "This is Eagle-6 abort! Abort!" With only seconds to spare, the message was relayed to the F-15Es conducting the strike, the pilots made a flyby over the Statue of Liberty, their payloads still intact as the situation was resolved. "Good work Barnes…"


	10. Chapter 10: Making moves

Chapter 10: Making moves

November 4th, 2034, 3 hours after the Battle of New York concluded

Taklamakan Desert, Central Asia

Under the shelters of the trackless desert and the hardened concrete steel walls of Orion Sword, Girain sat in Stuka's hangar with his squad of identical Rex Units as they were exercising and chilling. Stuka was keeping himself close to Girain after their initial nuzzling, he was sitting on the floor for once instead of lowering himself to a squat position and locked his prosthetic legs into place like usual.

He saw that she had her arm on his neck stroking gently down his dorsal plates. He had his arm wrapped around her waistline and tucked her in closer to feel comfortable, strangely enough, at least for him, it felt natural, not at all artificial or forced. He wholeheartedly enjoyed the process of having Girain care for him and in return he felt an incentive to care for her. She was busy reading a holographic display in front of her, projected via a built in projector inside the common room's table.

It displayed to her numerous reports on her medical conditions, namely the development that was happening inside of her synthetic organs, attached to the reports were various photos taken of her still developing atomic furnace and organs and it shook her to the core. Stuka read alongside her and noticed that the atomic furnace was like his own albeit in a more primitive state. Other X-Ray photos showed them slowly developing, so far it had reached out to infect and subtly modify her lungs but still far from the point of allowing her to fire her own atomic breath.

"This is disturbing, your body is mostly mechanical and may suffer from malfunctions if we don't know how this development goes." Stuka remarked concernedly before glancing over to her, seeing she returned his glance and concern. "It is. But it shouldn't be too much of a concern, right Stuka? I mean I was made to handle Godzilla and nuclear hardened from his radiation." Girain remarked with a comforting tone to Stuka.

He nodded slowly but rather more out of caution to her than anything. "Affirmative, we are able to withstand the radiation. However, caution must never be thrown to the wind because we have to keep you safe and in nominal operational condition." He retorted leaning in on her chest, rubbing his head and cheek against her albino chest armor panels.

Girain mentally smiled at his affection before leaning her head down to nuzzle his head in return, almost like she was kissing him. "Unit Athena and Unit Stuka, we have some news development in North America." R-1002 informed them monotonously before switching on a TV monitor built into the wall of their common room to show them news coverage of the battle of New York had concluded.

The sight of burning vehicle husks on the Manhattan Bay islands combined with the shocking devastation to the buildings and national monuments save for the Statue of Liberty being the most shocking for Girain to see. "Oh my… What was Jonah doing there? Why attacked three islands and America for that matter?" Girain asked profusely, to which R-1002 monotonously answered with a rather dull tone. "Debriefing is waiting for you right now at deployment terminal 3. Unit Athena and Stuka are to report there ASAP."

Although at first Girain found the terse and deflecting words to be annoying. But she didn't see any points in enraging herself at R-1002, who was doing his job as a messenger. "Alright, I take it that Mr. Grey is waiting for me for matters of New York and the Manticore, correct?" She saw R-1002 nodding his head to her and helped her as well as Stuka up to their feet before opening the door for them to exit the common room.

Stuka once again led the way for Girain inside of Orion Sword's base, but the walking pose he and Girain displayed suggest something much more intimate was fast developing between them. She was walking upright, but they were holding hands with each other, Stuka's walking pose seems to have taken a more upright manner similar to Girain with him walking with her towards Terminal-3, a combined deployment hangar for humans and giant mecha units, namely Rex Units.

They took up positions inside a large open ground area of the hangar where they had some elbow room to move around with Mr. Grey alongside Joe Marshall seen sitting on some folding chairs with a returning Orion Sword special operation team. No doubt these were the Rifle-1 and Rifle-2 teams deployed against the Winter Estate in New York. Girain naturally sat down on the metal floor with her ankles held together by her arms with Stuka maintaining his professional pose and composure and sat down next to her.

"Sir, you summoned us?" Stuka asked Mr. Grey and heard him clearing his throat over the intercom. "Indeed I did. There has been some disturbing revelations Rifle-1 and 2 found in New York." Grey stated, he then offered the team leader of Rifle-1 and 2 the honor of disclosing what they found and speak directly to the anxious Girain.

"Hey uh Athena," Rifle-1 team leader begins, "Listen, while we were raiding the Winters Estate for intel on the Jacqueline Natla lady, we found something in her basement." hearing this, Girain leaned in slightly out of curiosity for what he had to say, causing the balaclava masked operator to lean back against his folding chair on instinct. "What did you find?" She asked him calmly, to which he gulped thickly before following up what he just said. "Well… we found a lady with a ton of skeletons in her closet. She got a whole safe room in the basement with weird hieroglyphics writings. Photos and maps of Atlantis coordinates and shit. Pardon my French." Said the team leader before he presented Girain with photos taken inside of said Safe Room.

Stuka blunk upon seeing the photos, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him but no, the photos were there, staring back at him through the optics of his helmet. "It… can't be. How does she know?" Stuka asked the billion dollar question and prompted Rifle-1 Team leader to explain to them both with some scans of Natla's journals and research documents. "We found these as well. Research documents pertaining to genetic manipulations, advanced stuff, no college or universities on Earth have any kind of knowledge or courses for these kinds of theories."

They then projected holographic scans of the genetic manipulation experiments, each scans show them a strange and bizarre, rather detailed look at how to literally create custom DNA from nothing. It was defying the conventions of science and established knowledge regarding genetic science. Normally manipulation and outright cloning as done on Rex Units, require a base template, the finding however, shows that somehow the knowledge of Atlantian genetic manipulation was in Natla's hands and she was able to make meticulous notes of it.

"Wait… wait a minute, I think Stuka and I still have data on what we found in those Scion pieces." Girain looked over Stuka before looking for a USB cable that can latch into neural outlet ports on the back of their necks. She soon found one nearby before latching them onto hers and Stuka's outlets with his helmet opening up its forehead region to reveal a holographic projector. The projector then showed Grey and Joe what appeared to be matching hieroglyphs and inscriptions, depictions similar to the ones found in Natla's Safe Room. "You see this? These are what the Scion essentially dumped into us, my hard drive, Stuka's suits and so on."

Grey nodded to her as he and Joe watched the content being displayed with cross reference marks being put on by Stuka, behind them was Wallace Barringer who was using a tablet to remotely copy the data for analysis. "You don't suppose…" He asked before pausing, stumbling over something that he might find rather odd. "She isn't human?" Girain asked the other half of his question, only to see Barringer made a disturbed nod.

"That would certainly explain it, she knows about Atlantis, she knows about genetic manipulations, she knows how to read and write the language. But I don't know how the hell can she survive to this day." Barringer remarked in a rather stupendous and baffled tone looking at Girain only to see her shrugged at him. "Well we have Godzilla able to live all the way till today… I guess it's possible the Atlantian somehow survived longer than average humans right? They predate homosapiens so I doubt they're the same even with very humanoid body structure and proportions."

Girain's reasoning left Grey nodding and stroking his chin both impressed and intensely interested in what she had to say. Barringer noted Grey's body language in the way his head pointed directly at Girain's face staring directly into her, as if he was mesmerized and captivated by the female mecha unit's deliberations and her observant mind.

"Athena, as wild and out of this world as it sounds I find your suspicion to be possibly true. I think the most imperative objective for all of us right now is to obtain all three pieces of the Scion and bring them all back to secure whatever knowledge it holds." Grey stated sternly and on Girain's HUD and Stuka's own were new Primary Objective updates for them both, it read "Primary Objective: Recover the Scion final piece".

"Noted, I'll probably have to get back to the GDI soon, they may have moved the pieces we found to a secured location already. But still, it's better for me to get back to them soon." Girain sighed out nodding to Grey as the cables dislodged themselves from her and Stuka's ports allowing them to stand up and walk around again. "Stuka, escort her to the armory, we'll have to provide for her weapons and ammo before you two are deployed. I'll have the others on standby for deployment as well considering the situation." Grey instructed Stuka to which he nodded to his superior's words. "Affirmative sir, Athena, please follow me this way."

Stuka then led Girain through the corridors of the base towards the armory and shooting range of the with massive concrete blocks in the range for her to practice on. The place also had shooting stations for about 5 mecha units in total to drill in. "You guys sure like the underground base. Mine is all open air to get used to real ballistic." Girain muse while Sttuka was picking out an assault rifle from the weapon racks and cocked its bolt before handing it to Girain, it was a Titan sized G36A2 assault rifle, unlike Stuka's rifle this one seems more standard compared to his SL-8 modeled and patterned version.

"How thoughtful." Said Girain with a bit of tingling sense of joy. "The G36A2-T operates similarly to normal G36A2s of the Bundeshwer, you should find it highly controllable and accurate." Said Stuka as he gave Girain three magazines to use, she then loaded one magazine into the rifle and cocked the bolt. Before long, she was starting to aim down range and open fired on the cinder block targets. Rounds blew off chunks of debris and pieces of concrete on the floor with Girain keeping the weapon in semi auto mode to have a better chance at hitting her targets.

Stuka observed her shooting pose and accuracy to see how the two correspond to one another, he saw that she was able to score impressively high accuracy before she had to reload. "Athena, perhaps you like a USP45 as a sidearm?" Stuka offered her a USP45 pistol allowing her to pick it up in her hand and inspect the sidearm to see it was without attachments under the barrels and the rounds were 45-T caliber. Might be enough to give lesser Titan some wounds, "I'll take two." Girain remarked causing Stuka to blink in surprise but handed her a second pistol anyway, this time he saw her putting them into her thigh holster compartments.

That was when the images clicked into his head, he noticed how Girain practiced drawing the pistols out of her thigh holsters and twirled them in her fingers seem to look similar to how Shiryu "Corsair" performing his own pistol twirling, but here Girain was dual wielding with a pair of pistols and she was an archaeology enthusiast of a mecha unit.

"Your methods remind me of a fictional female character." Said Stuka in a blunt manner still figuring out the connection slowly as he did not have freedom to access video games outside of the Orion Sword base. "Lara Croft? Well to be honest I spend my free time playing Tomb Raiders with the guys in whatever base I was stationed in." Girain remarked with a slight smirk and chuckle that made Stuka cocked his head curiously. "You do? Does it help improve your efficiency?" He asked a question that Grey would have done so himself if Girain was in the same room as Grey.

"No, but it does make you want to be imaginative. Besides, it's fun to do speedruns with the guys in the base." Girain remarked making Stuka silenced as he didn't know how to answer that but simply hum in thought. Watching them from security cameras and listening in on their conversation bemused. "How thoughtful, unorthodox but very effective." Grey mused while stroking his chin, while watching Girain helped Stuka perform the twirling of his pistol.

"Her willingness to cooperate and share techniques is… peculiar. But highly welcoming nonetheless." Joe added seeing the two were interacting with one another. "Truly, she did not fail to live up to her name." Joe took note of how Grey seems to have a rather odd fascination with Girain, before, Lenox was very much different, technical and logical and straight to the point. But since the day Girain fell into their sight, he seems to have taken up a fascination with researching and keeping her inside his base.

XXXX

Meanwhile, by the Orion Sword lounge area, Rabbi was hanging by a sofa with a shot of Vodka in hand, he was watching the news of Athens being pounded by the Manticore with a sigh of relief on his face. For the time being, he thought, the biggest threat to his exposure was dealt with. Meaning that he wouldn't have to worry about anything anymore.

The news broadcast in Athens show interviews by reporters of various Athenian citizens and tourists, most of whom were still terrified by the Manticore rampage and Godzilla within close proximity to their city wrestling sphinx. Among the dead was none other than Natla's husband, Cameron Winter. The GDI disaster relief crew was moving his body out from a pile of rubble of his hotel, Rabbi sat and watched eagerly waiting for the eventual report of his wife.

But something was not right, he sat and watched patiently and yet nothing was seen on the news. The GDI crew members were going over the rubble of the hotel they were in, digging out piles of rubble and yet they still found nothing to conclusively declare Natla was dead. At the worst possible moment for a jumpscare for Rabbi, his phone rang causing him to shoot up from the sofa.

The other Orion Sword members present there looked at him curiously, some even had hints of suspicion in their eyes as Rabbi hastily ran out of the lounge into the nearest bathroom and picked up his phone. Much to his terror, it was the number of Natla as if she was calling from the graves itself. His mind went into denial, trying to ignore it but the phone was ringing, and her number was on the display in front of his face.

Like an invisible force, he was coerced, perhaps by instincts against his better judgements, to answer her call. "H-hello? Aren't you supposed to be dead?" He asked while being shaken by fear, only to hear her bone chilling voice coming through the phone like a phantom. "You tell me. I took solid advice."; "And that is?"; "When you want something done, do it yourself."

Hearing her gave him the chilling fear of her sinister intents, his mind tried to make sense of her ominous warning while his heartbeat quickening. "Please, I don't want anything to do with you anymore…" He begged her, not sure what she would do to him now that he was at her mercy even on the phone. "You're right, your worth is up at this point. So how does it feel to betray your own?" She asked tauntingly, Rabbi himself listened and noticed the wording she used suggest that she didn't even look at him as a human. "Jeez, what is with you bitch? Are you some superiority Amazonian?"

He heard her chuckling arrogantly over the phone, but it was also one that was intoxicated with power and lust for glory. "You poor pathetic little man. What were you before Rabbi? Yuri? Vladimir? Egor? Ivan? Lev? I can't remember, they're memories in the wind now for me. Just like you." He suddenly turned pale and petrified in fear hearing the way she messed with his mind, knowing every trick he ever pulled. Even if he ran to the end of the world, she would still find him if she wanted to.

XXXX

Meanwhile, Girain and Stuka were well on their way out towards the GDI's safe keep base in the Pacific via airlift using the Orion Sword unmanned Herons to ferry them across the continent. It was significantly slower than the delivery system Stuka used, but far safer due to their flight path being much more calculated ahead of time with fighter escorts to a certain range.

On the way, Stuka and Girain were allowed to converse with each other over the coms, despite the surveillance they didn't seem to mind the inconveniences too much. "Unit Athena… I have been meaning to ask you something." Stuka asked hesitantly, from his voice, he sounded as if he was fidgeting and having trouble regarding what he was intending to tell her. "What is it Stuka? You seem nervous by it." Said Girain, as Stuka breathed in and out to compose himself. "It's about… well… matters of breeding." he said, this aroused Girain's curiosity and nervousness even more as she tried to listen to his words. "Our time together might be brief… but I want to ponder… the thought of us conceiving a child together."

Hearing this stunted Girain, any other Orion Sword operating the VTOLs from the safety of their base along with any relevant personnel that were listening on their conversation. Some of them were in fact sweating profusely hoping that Mr. Grey wasn't listening, but he really did. And he too was growing increasingly concerned, almost as if he was about to explode a fiery rage over the radio. "Y-You want to… want to mate… with me!?" Girain blurted out in confusion as their VTOLs came over to the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Before dropping them into the ocean to allow the two swimming back to Black Site Mike India-04.

While swimming under the ocean, Stuka continued speaking to Girain though he himself was rather confused and lost for words just as much as Giran. "I don't know why, but I have been feeling oddly aroused around you. It's an instinctual desire I felt I have to satisfy, but it has no bearing on the efficiency of my role." Stuka explained to Girain, as she nodded to him slowly before remarking, "I can understand that Stuka. Everything we do in life is for sexual gratifications." She sighed out, which prompted Stuka to cock his head sideways. "Sigmund Freud?" He asked, seeing her nodded to him as they swam back to the island.

"My apologies… I did not mean to…" He was cut short by Girain who held his hand gently before they came towards her home island the Blacksite and waded ashore. "It's alright Stuka, I mean… well… I honestly felt the same towards you. Just that I don't think it's the right time and place." Girain sighed out to him as the two stood by the beach during the early dawning hour. As the sun rose up from the eastern horizon, the two were highlighted by the glistening water droplets, their metal armor reflected countless sunlight glints.

"I appreciate your respect. But… I… want to know… if the thought is ever feasible. Or at least… reasonable on our part." Said Stuka as he leaned in closer to Girain, making her wrapped her hand around his head and patting him gently, resting it against her chest. "I'm not sure about that now… but… I think there's no harm in entertaining that." As Girain finished her saying, she felt that they were beset upon by a familiar presence, rising up from the nearby bushes was none other than Chikiryu, cheekily giggle at their interaction. "Hey there lover birds, thanks for providing me with the cute video. This will go well on my YouTube channel."

Girain grumbled and huffed out at Chikiryu for intruding on their privacy. "How long have you been spying on us?" Girain snarled at Chikiryu who in turn flaunted herself and went over to spank Girain's metal rumps, making a loud "clank" sound that made Stuka shudder. "Long enough, thanks to you I got proof to start shipping you two hard. Too bad Shiryu isn't even trying to make a move on me yet. Unlike this big, brave and strong dream boat." Chikiryu leaned her back in on Stuka's front making suggestive flirts and looked at him, making him rather uncomfortable around her.

Even more so when Chikiryu reached down to grab hold of Stuka's crotch plate, making him shudder uncomfortably and pushed her away from him. "Will you please leave him alone? The last thing I want is an international incident between Orion Sword and GDI while we're having an international terrorist and common enemy." Girain jumped in defensively keeping Chikiryu back away from Stuka for his well being, making Chikiryu giggled playfully and teased Girain, "Look who's getting defensive there."

This made Girain even more annoyed at Chikiryu's sassy and annoying temperaments, the towering MFS unit then walked with Stuka back to the GDI Air-Naval Base on the island, accompanied by Chikiryu who followed behind them filming the two with her helmet. "Anyway, how is Shiryu?" Girain asked sighing out, "Oh he's fine, just spending time in Hawaii right now protecting the fancy ancient artifact. I'm here helping Gojirin get into the MFS rhythm of things."

Hearing this made Stuka glanced back at Girain curiously, "How is Gojirin doing since she received the MFS suit?" He asked Chikiryu, trying to make sure he wasn't molested again, he kept glancing over his shoulder to see if Chikiryu came closer to spank him like the last time. "Oh she's fine, I've been helping her get used to moving around in the suit. The guys in the base managed to surgically graft a neural port on her." feeling much more interested by the development, Stuka asked further at Chikiryu just to be sure seeing that he might be onto critical intel.

"Then you have programmed her with the necessary knowledge on usage of the MFS suit? Like Rex Unit learning with E-Books?" He saw Chikiryu nodding her head before passing them by. "Well more like we've just started today, I led her back to base and told her to wait in the hangar when I heard you two love birds were coming." With that Chikiryu led them towards the GDI base and into the hangar of the base where they saw Gojirin kneeling on the floor waiting for Chikiryu to come back.

She was wearing her MFS the navy blue MFS suit with the "MFS-6" imprinted on her chest panel with her emerald green optics flashed brighter when she focused on Girain with a smile under the armored face helm. "Girain, you're back at last. How have you been? I was growing worried that something might have happened to you." Gojirin came to Girain and hugged her in like a bear with both hands wrapped around Girain's sides pressing their chests into each other.

Girain let out a gentle pant and heave as she felt Gojirin pressing her in before returning the hug. "Well don't worry, Stuka was being pretty nice to me. At least I was given a warm welcome in his home." Said Girain, prompting Gojirin to look at Stuka now with a much friendlier gaze and leaned down to pat his head. "That's good to hear. Thank you for taking care of Girain, I can't thank you enough." Said Gojirin, Stuka hearing this purred out in an instinctual reaction at her generosity and kind friendliness. "I am honored." He remarked tersely.

"So Girain, this won't be too… stinging, will it?" Gojirin asked sheepishly, feeling rather nervous at Girain as she resumed her kneeling posture with Stuka inspecting the back of her neck where she would have the neural outlet port grafted onto her. "No it won't, okay maybe a little, but we got this covered." Chikiryu sarcastically chuckled before Girain began to apply the painkiller, alcohol and disinfectant on the spot for Gojirin, with that done, the surgery needle began to press into position, making Gojirin yelped ever so slightly and twitched her eyes feeling the device was being pressed through the layer of her flesh.

"Ooof! Agh! That hurts a bit." Gojirin wheezed out before slowly falling into unconsciousness and let herself be worked on by the humans. The automated surgery process went on inside of her, tapping the port into the base of her skull before working down with a carefully made tube and wire connection to the entry port.

Making sure that it did not interfere with the atomic pulses and her organic components. "Precise and effective, MONARCH still retains their experience personnel from the Rex Unit program?" Stuka asked Girain, to which she let out a slight smirk at him. "You know I can't disclose that right?" he in turn let out a soft chuckle for the first time to her. "I know, but… I find amusement in deliberately asking impossible questions." Said Stuka.

"Awwww, look at you two, you're learning how to have fun maybe you guys will kiss later on." Chikiryu snorted out and laughed at them, meanwhile, Gojirin was being programmed with a stream of data and E-Book knowledge tapped into her head using the port. A similar manner to how Rex Units like Stuka and Shiryu were bred and raised. "Corsar was raised in secrecy for 3 years, mostly to iron out possible defects before programming is conducted. How long would hers take?" Stuka asked cautiously while observing Gojirin's limp and unconscious condition, seeing that she was being programmed with a basic programming bloc.

"Probably 4 hours, it might be faster if she has high comprehension and retention ability in her brain. No offense that is, but this is new to everyone." Girain's explanation was greeted with a skeptical chin stroking from Stuka, "I see, very groundbreaking indeed on your part. Not even Orion Sword had thought of going this far." He commented before opting to switch back to earlier topic with a clear throat. "About the… children between us. I know it is impossible given your condition and my programming. But what if our DNA was mixed together… for a Rex Unit offspring?" He asked hypothetically, making Chikiryu chuckled and feeling rather aroused, enticed by the idea. "Oooooh don't switch channels now chica, this oughta be bueno."

"Well… that does sound more feasible." Said Girain in a hesitant tone as she tried to think through on the matter, it would sound like a reasonably practical concept. But there were still many other dilemmas regarding ethics, morality and implications in the long run. "There are still problems however. I mean, it's not a bad idea on paper but… what of this child of ours? What will it be like? What kind of life will it have?" Girain asked Stuka, making him feel buckling on his knees, perhaps some signs of grief sipping in making him questioning his intention.

"I don't mean to demean you Stuka, but it's just… well… I don't think I'm ready for that. Being a mother, a Rex Unit child… I just don't know if I'm cut out for that." Girain stated to Stuka while sitting down and patted his shoulder, prompting Chikiryu to come over and patted them both on their backs.

"Oh come on now you two, do you think Gojirin was ready to be a mother before she had Jr? If y'all don't believe me? Why not ask her yourself?" Chikiryu spouted, making Girain taking a step back thinking to herself about the prospect. "I know Chiki but the problem is still… well… if I were a mother, would I risk my child's life in unnecessary conflicts? Or put it into a life that has no meaning except for serving others? One that it never chooses at that." Said Giran with a strong sigh as she sat down, with Stuka coming to her side and cuddling in closer to hug her. "I thought it would have eased your mind on the problem."; "I know Stuka, I understand that you're sincere in your desire. But I'm still not sure about where it will go, for us and our child that is."

Stuka nodded in agreement to her as he stroked her abdomen area where her stomach would be, as if he was imagining a womb with an egg inside. He pressed his head against her chest region, giving Chikiryu photo opportunity to take compromising photos of them both. "Like a child's dream." He commented, making Girain purred to him lovingly. "Fitting. It should have been so simple." She replied to him before proceeding to nuzzle his forehead lovingly, the two purred lovingly to one another as he could not help but open his mouth plate and begin to press the exposed lips against hers.

Chikiryu felt herself tingling when she saw them engaging in French kiss with Girain and Stuka lip-locked. Their tongues pressed in against one another as the two played with one another vigorously, "Oh am I interrupting you two?" Gojirin asked embarrassingly, blushing red under her armor as she noticed Stuka and Girain making out to one another, she remained in her kneeling posture but was now placing her hands on her knees in a more human like manner.

"Oh Gojirin… you're done with the programming?" Girain asked blushing in surprise as Stuka and Girain turned to face Gojirin, "Affirmative," the two were stunted by the first word to have come out of Gojirin's mouth and tone she had was a much more professional and courteous one at that. "My programming bloc has been installed, or should I say… implemented. I can see how Rex Units and you work Athena. Thanks." Said Gojirin as she stood up from her kneeling pose and had the cable on the back of her neck dislodged with a slight jolt of static electricity pleasure tingling her body.

"I've been hearing talks of maternity from you and him. Nervous, aren't you?" Gojirin asked Girain teasingly with a slightly playful tone as she ran her hand on Girain's rumps and forward to her abdomen region and reaching down to her crotch region. This made Girain tingled and froze with a gasp escaping her mouth. "Go ahead and speak love, I'm all ears to you Athena." Gojirin stated to Girain with a loving and passionate kiss on her lips, pressing her up against the wall while gently parting her thighs apart.

"Gojirin… I'm just really… nervous about the idea. Especially by what kind of life awaits my child with Stuka. But I do love him…" Girain panted through her lips as she felt gripping using a combination of her natural Titan strength and the MFS suit augmentation power. Gojirin by now had her hands on Girain's hips as she was making circular rubbing motion that enticed Girain to loosen up further. "Do you think I was ready when the King mated with me? We get used to things dear. Have faith." Said Gojirin with a grin as she seized Girain in a mesmerizing kiss and rubbed the cyborg's hips to the point Girain was likely blushing to Gojirin. "Alright, if you say so Gojirin. Uh I hope they didn't program you too hard."

"Oh fear not love, I think they only… stepped a bit further than they should. I am MFS-6 Myrrhine at your service." Said Gojirin in a rather flirtatious tone to Girain as she let go of Girain and spanked Girain's rumps over to Stuka to allow them some heart to heart. "Are you alright Athena? MFS-6 Myrrhine as she calls herself there seems rather dominant."; "Don't worry, she likes to play that with me and I'm pretty much okay with it. It's just that… I love the idea and I love you for that Stuka. But the thing that holds me back is how our child will live."

Stuka had been observing Girain and Myrrhine's love making sessions from before but also was thinking over the details regarding their child. He might have been a quiet, stiff and robotic character before, but now he was thinking outside the box for the first time. "I know. But I believe a child between us might be the key to peace between Orion Sword and GDI. Two major power blocs must not fight one another, lest we forget the Great War." Said Stuka to which Girain gasped and blunk seemingly baffled by his observation. He was starting to sound more humanlike, an idea like that she admit was not half bad, in fact it might seem feasible and admittedly valid.

"You know… that does make sense…" However before she can continue, she was interrupted by a call on the secured line from the USS Argo, apparently it was General Grady. "Excuse me." She politely excused herself and scooted over to the wall where a reply button was seen next to a flat screen. She saw that apparently Grady was aboard the ARGO in Pearl Harbor with his expression being a smirk and a relief smile looking at her. "General Grady sir, I take it that you've escorted Shiryu and the Scion to a secured location." Girain greeted him with a salute, prompting him to return one to her briefly but in a more loose and relaxed manner.

"At ease. And yeah, I took him out for a walk per handling instruction." Said Grady with a sarcastic snarky tone, Girain nearly snorted out hearing his wording. "I was kinda missing that. So how's security around the facility?" Girain asked, prompting Grady to push up a video screen showing her the level of security Pearl Harbor enjoys. Ranging from patrolling Destroyers, airborne drones, fast moving unmanned combat surface crafts.

Others include patrols by MPs and other security personnel of Pearl Harbor, with Shiryu patrolling the area around Pearl Harbor's entry. "Not too subtle, I know." Grady remarked with Girain giving him a shrug. "Well I can't complain with that sir. Has Mr. Grey been in contact with you?" She asked, seeing Grady nodded while lighting up a cigar and smoked it casually. "He speaks enough… about you." the terse statement made Girain and Stuka both cringed hearing it since it suggested something strange was happening to Mr. Grey.

"Interrogative general Grady, how is Unit Corsair doing in Hawaii? I wish to be redeployed there with Unit Athena to link up with the research team of the Scion." Stuka voluntarily spoke up with Grady nodded to his request. "Affirmative, recommendation says you two are needed. So I might as well get you two over." But just as General Grady was about finished with his statement, they heard a loud muffled coms broadcast from Shiryu with a "What the fuck!?" blurted out.

"Girain! What the hell!? Why is she talking that to HIM!?" Shiryu was outraged, with Girain glancing over her shoulder to see Chikiryu speaking to him, no doubt purposefully leaking materials that Girain preferred kept private about her and Stuka. "Hey it's no big deal, big sis has been an intern wife to the Big Guy for too long now. Somebody gotta come in and liberate her from that life."

This only triggered Shiryu's outrage even further as he loudly and vehemently objected to the notion of Girain being in love with someone from Orion Sword. "HELL NO! Do you know what they did to me!? They mind raped me, they tried to capture me and leave the world defenseless! I'm not letting my sister fall in love with my replacement in that camp!" He bellowed out, hamming up the objection to the point of making Chikiryu giggled at his over the top outrage while looking at Girain and Stuka being so close together and sent Shiryu photos she took using her helmet's optics. All she heard was him screaming and apparently coughing up. "Anyway we're coming to Hawaii, at least you won't be lonely. Oh and better prepare a romantic dinner place for two couples." Chikiryu teased him further by blowing a kiss over the coms before hanging up the call.


	11. Chapter 11: Commitment

Chapter 11: Commitment

For Godzilla, his idea of a relaxing time would be lazily lying on his stomach sun basking in the tropic air. Or in some other cases, he might find the hollow Earth and its radiation ideal for healing and rejuvenation. Right now, both he and his son were lying on the beach of their island, enjoying themselves, they heard the gentle waves lapping the shore, the water rising to cool them down before retreating back to the greater body of water.

The tropical sky and breeze blew over the two Godzillas as they slept soundly without a care in the world, but even then Godzilla still had his concern for the well being of his family and Girain. It was odd for him to develop attachments and concern for what was ultimately a mechanical unit made in his species's image. But he trusted her, cared for her, it would be remiss of him if he were to not acknowledge her help in caring for Jr.

Their nap was cut short however when they heard the thudding of approaching footsteps from the nearby jungle. He grumbled and tried to nap for longer, but the footsteps kept coming and with his son disturbed, the juvenile Godzilla made his father wake up from their slumber as the two noticed the arrival of Girain and Gojirin as well as the two Rex Units Stuka and Chikiryu.

The King now awoken but still somewhat drowsy, he went first to his wife, noticing that she was dressed in a mechanical armor suit, he knew that it was a gift from Girain but at the same time, he felt it was slightly off putting to see his mate looking almost identical to the female cyborg. "My love, Girain? What's going on here? Why on Earth are you still dressing like that?" He asked them slightly irritated by the sight of Gojirin wearing the MFS suit.

Jr was quick to be on alert at the sight of Stuka and Chikiryu, he was hiding behind his father's heel and peeking out looking at them cautiously before sniffing the scent of his mother, on instinct, he went towards her and licked her feet to see if he can elicit a response. He saw her bending over to pick him up and cradled him in her arms as she began to nuzzle his forehead lovingly. "Don't worry dear, it's not that big of a deal. Girain is just being a good friend with benefits. Isn't that right?"

Girain nodded to Gojirin, indicating that Godzilla can indeed trust them, but he was still cautious with humans in his life. "I am not entirely convinced. But very well." He replied to them cautiously. "What are you doing here?" He pointed directly at Stuka, but the Rex Unit this time didn't seem to flinch, rather he stood his ground facing the King with his hand reaching down to his right thigh area. "My duty and commitment to her." Said as he had his tail swaying over to Girain's side, indicating to Godzilla that he wasn't going to run away from Girain.

"Can you two stop it please? I'm getting tired of you two keep on threatening each other." Girain sighed out, prompting Godzilla to look back at her grumpily. "Fine, what are you here for?" He asked her tersely while Jr was leaning over to Girain sniffing her, finding the odd sterilized metal scent from within her hangar make him curious at what she did there. "I'm here to tell you that… I won't be your intern wife anymore." Hearing this however sent Godzilla into a stunted frenzy as he flabbergasted and growled out in anger at Girain's defiance of his arrangement. "What? What are you talking about? Not being my intern wife anymore? So you'll drop being a normal living being for that!?" He pointed again to Stuka as a source of his frustration, making his mate Gojirin growled at him in protest.

"Dear stop acting like that. It's her decision." Gojirin asserted to him, making him feel much more uncomfortable by the changes. "Like I said, I'm not your intern wife anymore Godzilla. But thank you for everything… I helped you with Jr to the best of my ability. But I want to pursue my own relationship with Stuka." Said Girain in a calm but determined tone, Stuka hearing her felt highly motivated to protect her as he stood closer by her side.

Godzilla looked at them, seeing a shattering of a union he thought was fair arrangement for them. What could this mean for him? For her? He could not tell, his mind and instinct was only about the outrage and emotional impulse. But his wife was calming him down making him much more annoyed than before. "Why must you choose him?" He gritted his teeth but his anger seeth through the lips with venomous hate and jealousy.

"Because I love him. Now if you excuse us, we need to get to Hawaii." Said Girain as she began to head off to the Pacific Ocean with Stuka wading into the water, before she left, she gave Jr some love nuzzle and received some from him. "It's not as bad as it looks like Godzilla, were we so different?" Gojirin asked him, making him shake his head reluctantly to Gojirin, "What do you think I should do?" He asked his wife as he came towards her, pressing into her lips for a kiss. "Trust her. Let her make her decisions, that's more important than funnel her through your experience." she cautioned Godzilla lovingly before putting Jr down. "Now which one of us will babysit him?" she asked, Godzilla sighed out and waded into the sea following Girain. "You do. I'll be back."

XXXX

Hawaii, USA

November 4th, 2034, 17:13

Shiryu had been patrolling Pearl Harbor for at least a day since his arrival there, he circled back and forth around Mamala Bay keeping an eye out for trouble under the sea that the US Navy can't handle. Though for the time being it was unlikely that they would face any since the Battle of New York expended all immediate strength. But still, as General Grady dictated, precaution is always an absolute must.

Shiryu was expecting several mecha units to come for him, all friendly for the time being. But he was most worked up about Stuka's developing relationship with Girain. As he was swimming about, he spotted contacts on his sonar display, IFF signatures were working on all contacts meaning these were friendly. He saw there were two Rex Units, one MFS and Godzilla in the pack.

This baffled him as alarms went up in Pearl Harbor making sailors and airmen scrambled for their ships and aircraft to take off and patrol the areas. F-35s flew about providing overwatch over the water while then submarines and destroyers started to leave harbor through the narrow entrance out to Mamala Bay while other elements of the fleet were converging on the approaching Titans.

Under the murky surface of the Pacific Ocean, Shiryu saw first Stuka and Chikiryu coming into view with Chikiryu holding her hand up to remind him not to shoot at them on sight. He however grumbled and was fuming with rage under his helmet. "Hola Rexy, you got our romantic date set up?" Chikiryu asked Shiryu playfully. "Negative." Shiryu tersely replied to Chikiryu only for her to giggle teasing him before she strutted seductively towards him, showing off her thighs and swaying her hips side to side. "Ooooh then in that case I better tame you." Chikiryu fired back before pushing herself onto Shiryu, pressing him down and making him groaned out slightly.

On instincts he grabbed her thighs and pulled her down only for her to grab him by his wrists and pinned him down on his back while making dry humps against his crotch. "Hey stop it Chiki! I'm not ready yet!" He shrieked out in panic and confusion before noticing Girain coming towards Stuka and stood by his side holding hands. "You two! I warn you Stuka, you break my sister's heart and I'll dismantle you piece by piece!" Shiryu shouted out in a roaring rage threatening Stuka who stood unphased by the threat.

"Noted, my relationship with Unit Athena will not be for personal gains. Her well being and that of our future child is paramount." Stuka stated in a monotonous robot voice, serving to further infuriate Shiryu when he heard of the mere mention of their children. "Lighten up pendejo it's not that big of a deal, besides it's gonna be fun for me to babysit their kids." Godzilla hearing them was not amused, he simply stood there and acted as watcher on Girain as he grabbed her by the shoulder to get her attention. "You're absolutely certain about this? These human made Titans are… questionable at best." Godzilla remarked to Girain cautiously.

"Like I'm any different from them?" Girain retorted to him, making him concede her point and stepped back. "I'm looking out for you. Besides, Jr will miss you after all you've done for him." He remarked to her with Girain putting her hand on his chest. "Look… he'll be fine. He's better off raised by you than me, at least his mother at best just wears a suit." With that Godzilla nodded but rather cautious of what it might imply, "For now maybe… but know that nothing is ever that simple." Said Godzilla before planting a passionate kiss on her lips, with his hands moving down to fondle her crotch pulled her in by her rumps.

"You be careful with them. Shame I never get to conceive with you, a fine mother you'd be." The King commented flatteringly to Girain before letting her go, she took the kiss well and was flustered for a moment before remarking. "Thanks, at least we can agree on something. You sure you want to go inside?" Girain suggested courteously to him, Godzilla however sighed out and shook his head. "No thanks I'll help the kid guard your back. Beside I have trust issues I need to sort out."

"Alright… but don't do anything drastic to anyone." Girain reminded him before swimming away with Stuka into an underwater submarine base and research station of MONARCH and the US Navy underneath Pearl Harbor. The two had to go through a massive water ballast area with two blast doors shut behind them and the water drained. With them now dry, Rick and Sam invited them into the interior of the station showing them various things they have collected and researched over the years.

Stuka noticed the skeletal remains of Dagon being assembled together for a deep research process on body structure. "Another MFS unit like you? I would be honored to meet him." Stuka remarked cautiously. "Really? You're not worried that you might one day fight him?" Girain asked Stuka making him cocked his head to the side, showing that he really didn't think things through as thoroughly as he should have. "I… was merely voicing my opinion if the best case scenario occur." Said Stuka defensively. "It's alright Stuka. I honestly hope for the best too. Ever thought about what our Rex Unit offspring would look, or just let Orion Sword do all the decisions?"

"Well… to be honest Unit Athena, I didn't think of that before. Regardless of appearance, I would still love it the same." Said Stuka with a smile forming under his helmet. Sam however was clued in on their conversation over the recorded communication frequency, he suddenly felt awkward by the conversation the two mecha were having and chimed in. "Uh did I miss something here?" Coleman asked sheepishly to both of them, prompting Stuka to take the reply bluntly. "We are contemplating our future child and in human terms, marriage."

Rick and Sam nearly had a heart attack upon hearing this, they didn't expect the Mecha units to have developed romantic and intimate relationships with one another this fast. And the fact the two were of rival organizations that would kill one another without a common foe. "Since when did you guys morph into a soap opera?" Rick asked sarcastically as the two were arriving at the MONARCH Vault containing the Scion of Atlantis.

"Since… I honestly lost count." Girain shrugged to this as she and Stuka came towards the Scion of Atlantis levitating in place radiating and crackling electrical pulses, allowing the humans to monitor its energy output and pattern of pulsing. Their equipment were mostly affected to a certain degree, more or less glitch and static from time to time due to the pulsing becoming stronger as Stuka and Girain came closer to it. "But seriously, you're talking about kids now? What the hell? I mean you can't even bear kids Girain. How are you two supposed to do that?" Rick unloaded on Girain and Stuka feeling a mixture of outraged and preposterous reaction.

"Relax Rick, I think it's just a joke. Beside we did make Rex Units and Girain smart enough to communicate with humans." Sam remarked reassuringly to Rick but even he was starting to sweat at the prospect of it being more literally true than a joke. "I'm pretty skeptical about the notion… but I think a Rex Unit offspring seems a plausible compromise for both of us." Said Girain with a more confident tone making the two humans calmed for a bit seeing the idea much more grounded in the realm of possibilities. "Well… that is pretty doable. I mean we still have your DNA material from the excavated remains. And if Stuka donates his DNA material we could realistically create a Rex Unit offspring for you guys."

"True but still… gotta answer the ethical and moral dilemmas of creating a Rex Unit." Girain remarked to Sam and Rick before shot a glare at Sam as if to say he was disapproving of Sam entertaining the notion of helping that coming true. "Anyway we'll improvise when we get there. For now, focus on the Scion." Rick reminded them as the two Mecha units approached the Scion piece levitating in place.

Once they were close enough, the Scion once again projected a brilliant glow and holograms of various data pieces showing the Earth being formed, continents shifted and shaped, the data had various incomplete coordinates and corrupted files that seemingly need the third piece to theoretically restore them. The two would then be able to compile together enough coding and files to decipher the location of the last piece of the Scion.

The holographic Earth began to rotate, changing the landscape of the continent before showing them a map of Egypt, namely the areas near Faiyum, the critical central part of Egypt and the Nile river's trade hub. The coordinates show that the secret tomb complex was by a desert ruins, half swallowed by Set's raging sand with some pillars and statues being barely visible. "So that's where we're going. How come we never saw that before…?" Girain mused cautiously at the rather unassuming burial site.

Stuka too was oddly sceptical towards what he found, he didn't seem content with the instantaneous revelation of information given to him. He instead tried to find whatever details that he might have missed somehow. "But how can such a ruin remain hidden for so long? If Godzilla's radiation can be detected by satellite, then shouldn't NASA have discovered the tomb by now?" Stuka asked Rick and Sam, both of whom shrugged to him. "Not sure, but it's possible that there something under the sand, something keeping the radiation contained. Lead I presume." Rick remarked.

It was no secret that Egypt had wide open spaces in abundance but a raging sand storm was a common hazard. It is well within the realm of possibilities that this particular ruin was sunken thousands of years ago due to sandstorms judging by the pattern of sands blowing over. "Whatever it is… I think we can start with that pillar there." Girain pointed to an odd looking cylindrical spire in the sand, it appeared to have something buried deep within. "Right, we'll start mission prep soon guys, you got about 4 hours of break before we go. So… knock yourself out."

XXXX

Free time to spend with each other, a luxury that was far and few in between, Girain and Stuka were finally able to exit the confines of the naval base and went outside, they saw that Godzilla was spending his time napping around the place while Shiryu and Chikiryu were swimming about guarding the premises. Giran and Stuka can hear the back and forth bantering and flirting conversation Chikiryu and Shiryu had on their coms.

The two nodded to one another and scooted away to a more private and secluded part of Hawaii, Keahiakawelo the Garden of the Gods on Lanai island. The two swam away from Oahu and eventually waded ashore by Lanai Island, at dusk, watching the sunset on the west with the sky under a reddish orange tint and the fading sunlight reflected off of their armor like glints. "It's beautiful here." Stuka remarked tersely, as he witnessed the fading sunlight for the first time with his own eyes. "It is, isn't it? I've seen it so many times, and yet I never get tired of it." Girain remarked with a synthetic sigh.

She lounged herself on the sandy beach with Stuka sitting down next to her, he dug his claws into the white sand, feeling the soft and grainy texture of the ground he was on as he slowly moved his claws around. "I have only seen sunset recently but it's so mesmerizing to me Athena." Stuka remarked as he let Girain place her palm on his back and stroke him like a cat. He began to purr out and laid back against Girain's chest to give her an easier grip on him.

"Stuka, I don't know if this is odd but… ever since we found those Scion pieces I… have been feeling odd and tingling in my lower body." Girain whispered softly into Stuka's right ear, catching him by surprise as he nearly fell over his own back before looking up at her for confirmation. "Uh… say again unit Athena, my hearings must have been faulty…" Stuka stuttered nervously to Girain as she looked down to her lower body, namely her pelvic region and back up at him. "I'm not lying to you… I've been feeling odd these past couple of days. Like a warm sensation I want quenched, I think I'm in heat…"

Hearing this coming from her mouth petrified Stuka, he wanted a child with her only in recent days, but now he was overwhelmed by a primal urge that all living beings have. A desire to propagate his species, to mate and satisfy his sexual desires in carnal delight. He frozed for a moment before leaning in at Girain's crotch, invading her private space silently and perhaps unwittingly before he stopped and lifted his head up at her. "Unit Athena, you know what Rex Units are bounded by?" He asked her, seeing Girain nodded while leaning back away almost like she was lying on her back. "Yes I know. Programming dictate they cannot have sexual cravings or desires to mate with other female Godzillas if there ever was one."

Stuka nodded to her as he then moved closer to her and laid his head down on her chest purring gently with the sound of his purring verberated into her own body and skeletal structure like a cat. "I wish to undo that programming… I still fight for Orion Sword yes. But without it, I can consummate my love with you." He begged to her prompting Girain to have a slight moment of indecisiveness. She knew that Grey was watching them both, and if she were to tamper with Stuka, she would endanger both Stuka and herself.

There was no telling what kind of defenses Orion Sword had encoded to prevent their Rex Units from being tampered with and perhaps she might have herself been hacked and reprogrammed by Orion Sword. "Stuka… I… I don't know if I should. I sympathize with you but… I don't know if I should. There is a real chance I might endanger you." She replied to him in a cautious tone as he nodded to her but continued his pleading.

"Affirmative, I understand your reason for hesitation. But this is my decision and a decision I made to be with you for a better future. Please Unit Athena… do it." He begged her further, now he was prying her thighs apart to reveal her shiny armored crotch to him. As if to make it clear that he wished for it and was not backing down. Girain felt his grip on her thigh intensified, his pressure on her continued as he pressed his still covered crotch region into hers. "Alright… I'll do it for you. Like I did to Shiryu." Girain reluctantly agreed to him, prompting Stuka to lean in closer to her face, as if he was ready to kiss her.

His mouthpiece opened up revealing his jaw often for his atomic breath attack but now for her to enjoy and she did. She slowed her panicked breathing down to nominal rate before pulling his head in with her left arm reaching behind her his head. From her palm a wire snaked out from the circular socket like a worm with its trident like prods attached into the neural net port on the back of his neck. He froze up a bit just short of her lips, but he regained his drive and went further and pressed his lips against her own.

His tongue slipped inside her mouth, rubbing and playing with her synthetic tongue while their lips locked. They panted and moaned, making out on the beach as if they were humans while then, her HUD showed various coding lines and access authentication to Stuka's system and mental programming. She weaved through them fairly easy with Stuka allowing her access, but back at Orion's home base in Central Asia, the alerts were going off at the technical specialists monitoring Rex Units.

Mr. Grey and his second in command Joe were notified almost instantly with Joe looking rather concerned by the development, he was about to go for keyboard to fight back Girain's hacking. Only to have Grey himself stopped him from doing that. "What are you doing? She's trying to hack Stuka, we have to stop her from…" Joe was stopped by Grey who pointed him to the screens displaying to them Girain's hacking process, removing protocols from a Rex Unit OS.

Protocol 5: Active Rex Unit must not attempt to mate with any female Titanus Godzillasaurus. If Rex Units attempt to mate, they will undergo a system reset and memory wipe procedure.

The protocol was deleted from Stuka's OS and in reaction, Stuka suddenly felt a strong static electricity surge in his brain, making him go for a more intense sex drive in his kissing with Girain, he moved his hands around her body, rubbing her hips in a circular motion. "She did the same to Unit Corsair. And he has demonstrated heightened combat aggressions and efficiency, perhaps it would be wise to… take note of this development." Said Grey as he gestured for Joe to continue with the keyboard.

Joe sat down and began to type on the keyboards at his station, entered a series of coding line using the connection Girain had established with Stuka. He then dispatched a spyware program called "Titan " into her system just before she was about to disconnect from Stuka, "It's active, we'll be able to remotely reprogram her if need be." Joe reported to Grey, his commander nodded in approval seemingly pleased by the development. "I can see this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship." Grey paraphrased Bogart's ending line from Casablanca, seemingly a perfect fit for the situation from his perspective.

"There… deed's done. How do you feel now Stuka?" Girain asked him as she broke from the kiss and the connection port, they had a suspension bridge of saliva hanging from their mouth as Stuka was reaching to her chest panels and grabbed them as if he was groping her. "Thank you Girain… I am in your debt. From now on, I'll make sure nothing can hurt you. I promise." Hearing him calling her by her name for once made Girain blushed mentally, but what sold her more was how sincere and determined his tone was.

"Stuka… will you… marry me?" Girain jokingly asked him, only to see him nodded to her bluntly perhaps thinking it was a genuine proposal. "I do." he then pressed his snout into Girain and nuzzled her gently before licking her neck. She purred to him before standing up and picked him up with her as they made their way back to base preparing for deployment.

As they swam back, they noticed Shiryu and Chikiryu were patrolling the area around Pearl Harbor with the former tailing her keeping his eyes out for her rear apparently. Godzilla himself was laying on his stomach, napping at the bottom of the ocean letting the two patrol the area for him. When Girain was coming back with Stuka, the trio took notice and dropped what they were doing. The King yawned and stretched himself out upon seeing Girain and Stuka, "So how was your date chica?" Chikiryu asked teasingly to Girain as usual.

"We've proposed to one another, and we agreed. Not sure how the ceremony will play out but as long as the spirit is there." Stuka replied to the two GDI Rex Units causing Chikiryu to squeal like a little girl while Shiryu was so shocked by the sudden twist and turn that he fainted upon hearing this. Godzilla who stood behind Shiryu the whole time knowing how the first Rex Unit was likely to faint in shock especially hearing something happen to Girain. The King caught Shiryu's back as he was falling and gently propped him up for Chikiryu to hug and cuddle in excitement.

"Did you hear that Rexy? They're gonna get married and pump out some new Rex Units!" She squealed hard to Shiryu making the unconscious Rex Unit hard to regain his bearing. Once he had come to, he was left with a long and awkward stare of Stuka, "You're going to marry her!? Why on Earth are you doing this at this moment!? You two have only met for like… days!" He protested and lambasted them going off the rail crazy with his overreacting and flabbergasting before his frame froze up, Chikiryu who had a holographic projection of a hacking interface in front of her locked Shiryu down to keep him from going even further. "Lighten up already, at least she's happy and get a family with someone she knows."

"So two are going to mate? Great I guess my job here is done then." Godzilla grumbled to Girain, he leaned forward at Stuka and sniffed him intensely before noticing Stuka putting his hand on the King's snout, keeping his nose from sniffing any further. "You take good care of her." Godzilla growled at Stuka, being half annoyed and also wary of the cyborg who nodded to him before letting go of his nose. "I will." Stuka remarked gently.

Girain however approached Godzilla and gave him and hug and patted his back as she rested her face on his chest. "Thank you. For everything. So what are you going to do now?" She asked him sincerely, as he purred out to her and nuzzled her head in response. "Back to my family of course. My son needs me. I'm sure Gojirin would congratulate you in person." Godzilla remarked before turning away from Girain and swimming back to his home around Skull Island.

XXXX

Mediterranean Sea, at that same time…

Jacqueline Natla had been on a plane for some hours since her departure from Greece, accompanying her was of course Colonel Alan Jonah and his mercenary. The plane she boarded and flew off was mostly empty, with her as the passenger, Jonah and his men were constantly on patrol around the craft, they haven't got off since their departure from Athens, save for a refuel at the island of Cyprus, they were still airborne, loitering around the Mediterranean Sea.

Jonah sat down beside Natla with a magazine in hand, as any self respecting mercenary/eco terrorist, he wasn't about to read Soldier of Fortune or the likes. Instead he was reading a financial magazine with the cover depicting Natla with a headline stating "MISSING!"

"Quite a show you put up. How long do you think it will take for them to figure out?" Jonah asked Natla while she nonchalantly read a magazine on travels and vacation destinations. "It matters not this time. The charade is up and once I found the last of the Scion and reclaim the other two, well… no humans would be even close to be my servant." Natla arrogantly remarked, to which Jonah smirked amusingly.

"Really now? In that case I might as well stick around and see what will come of that. Sadly we're out of trump cards to throw at them this time." Jonah remarked and silently sighed out disappointingly to Natla as he was uncertain on how she would proceed now that they have run out of proverbial ammo to fight. "You keep worrying. You were privy to NATO's military intel right?"

"I was before my choices in career led me to a different path." Jonah remarked and smirked bemusingly. "But seriously… what do you think we have to use against them on your next trip?" He asked her again, only to see her flipping up a laptop on a folding table in front of her seat. "I have ways. Do you know why I have an affinity for snakes?" She asked him cryptically, to which he sighed out disinterestedly. "The world lately has a large interest in reptiles. Care to enlighten me on yours?"

"Simple… I have an old pet in hibernation. Could use some waking up soon." She slid the laptop screen over Alan's face, showing him a satellite view of the Earth, in an area in the large open Atlantic Ocean showing the image of a Titan laying in hibernation in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

Unlike other more simple serpents like monsters, Jonah can see it has roughly seven heads spreaded out around the ocean, it's apparent that somehow this monster was able to hide for so long because it was laying at the lowest possible depth of the ocean. Remaining virtually still in hibernation to the point that it was able to blend in with its ambient environment. "So… you intend to wake up this bad boy?" He asked her curiously. "Indeed. That's where you'll be, I'll be following that overgrown fembot to where the last Scion piece is hidden."


End file.
